SECURITY IN NORTHEAST ASIA:
FKOM OKINAWA TO THE DMZ
Y 4, IN 8/16; SE 2/3
Security in Northeast Asia: Fron Qk...
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
APRIL 17, 1996
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
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^AR ;
9 ISSF
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
35-883 CC WASHINGTON : 1996
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
ISBN 0-16-053893-9
SECURllT IN NORTHEAST ASIA:
,. ^ FKOM OKINAWA TO THE DMZ
^ v. =■
Y 4, IN 8/16: SE 2/3
Security in Northeast Asia: Fron Dk. . .
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
APRIL 17, 1996
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
Mar 1
S 1SSP
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
35-^83 CC WASHINGTON : 1996
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office. Washington. DC 20402
ISBN 0-16-053893-9
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN
WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
TOBY ROTH, Wisconsin
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
JAN MEYERS, Kansas
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
JAY KIM, California
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
DAVID FLTvIDERBURK, North Carohna
STEVEN J. CHABOT, Ohio
MARSHALL "MARK" SANFORD. South
Carolina
MATT SALMON, Arizona
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
TOM CAMPBELL, California
New York, Chairman
LEE H. HAMILTON, Indiana
SAM GEJDENSON. Connecticut
TOM LANTOS, California
ROBERT G. TORRICELLl, New Jersey
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
HARRY JOHNSTON, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
Samoa
MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
ALBERT RUSSELL VJYKN, Maryland
JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
VICTOR O. FRAZER, Virgin Islands (Ind.)
CHARLIE ROSE, North Carolina
PAT DANNER. Missouri
Richard J. Garon, Chief of Staff
Michael H. Van DUSEN, Democratic Chief of Staff
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska, Chairman
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
JAY KIM, Cahfornia
MARSHALL "MARK" SANFORD, South
Carolina
DAN BURTON, Indiana
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
Michael P. ENNIS, Subcommittee Staff Director
Richard KESSLER, Democratic Professional Staff Member
Dan MaRTZ, Professional Staff Member
Jon J. Peterson, Staff Associate
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
Samoa
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
(II)
CONTENTS
WITNESSES
Page
Dr. Patrick Cronin, Senior Research Professor — Institute for National Strate-
gic Studies, National Defense University 4
Dr. James J. Przystup, Director — Asian Studies Center, The Heritage Fecun-
dation 7
Dr. Jonathan Pollack, Senior Advisor — International Policy, RAND Corpora-
tion 11
Dr. Marvin Ott, I-*rofessor — National Security Policy, National War College .... 16
APPENDIX
Prepared statements and biographical sketches:
Hon. Howard L. Berman, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Asia and
the Pacific 41
Hon. Jay Kim, a Representative in Congress from the State of California . 44
Dr. Patrick Cronin 45
Dr. James J. Przystup 51
Dr. Jonathan Pollack 63
Dr. Marvin Ott 75
Additional material submitted for the record:
Article submitted for the record by Dr. Patrick Cronin (Hans Binnendijk
and Patrick M. Cronin, "Asia-Pacific Challenges" Joint Force Quarterly,
Spring 1995) 89
Article submitted for the record by Dr. Patrick Cronin (Patrick M. Cronin
and Ezra F*. Vogel, "Unifying U.S. Policy on Japan," Strategic Forum,
November 1995) ■. 91
Article submitted for the record by Dr. Jonathan Pollack (Jonathan D.
Pollack, "The United States and Asia in 1995," Asian Survey, January
1996) 95
(III)
SECURITY IN NORTHEAST ASIA: FROM
OKINAWA TO THE DMZ
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1996
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m., in room
2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Bereuter, chair-
man of the subcommittee, presiding.
Mr. Bereuter. The subcommittee will come to order. We have a
number of votes that will take place on the House floor today, so
I think it is important that we do begin. I believe that the ranking
member will probably join us shortly, and I know that one of our
witnesses who just returned from Korea last night has not arrived
yet. But if he can recover from jet lag, and I think he is working
on his testimony, he will join us midway.
The subject of the subcommittee's hearing today is Security in
Northeast Asia: From Okinawa to the Demilitarized Zone on the
Korean Peninsula.
The Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific meets today to focus
on the topic of security in Northeast Asia. This hearing occurs on
the heels of some extremely troubling events in the region and
against the backdrop of President Clinton's ongoing visit to Korea
and Japan.
I hope today the subcommittee can explore the implications of de-
velopments in Northeast Asia for U.S. security interests with the
help of our panel, as well as to assess the Administration's man-
agement of our bilateral and multilateral involvement in this criti-
cal area.
First, I would say I am fully confident about the strong founda-
tion underpinning U.S. -Japan ties. However, there is no denying
that our relationsnip has undergone considerable strains. While bi-
lateral trade issues certainly deserve attention, I believe that our
security interests in the region have not received adequate atten-
tion. I hope that the President's meeting with Prime Minister
Hashimoto will serve to redirect our energies to resolving the prob-
lems that have plagued the security component of our alliance.
Ongoing events in Okinawa have caused particular concern. I
sincerely hope the Administration's decision this week to reduce or
return 20 percent of the land now occupied by U.S. forces to local
landowners in Okinawa means that the personnel eventually lo-
cated elsewhere on the islands of Japan will still be able to carry
out their duties effectively.
(1)
However, it is clear that this arrangement is only a band-aid ap-
proach that does not address the deeper long-term problems with
the Japanese public's perception of the U.S. military presence in
that country.
Indeed, some Okinawan citizens have already reacted to this de-
cision with anger, because other Okinawan bases will grow larger
as a result, or at least the number of personnel on those bases will
grow larger.
Okinawa's governor has also said the decision does not go far
enough, and is demanding the closure of all of the island's bases
by the year 2015. It was only a few weeks ago the thousands of
Okinawan residents were demonstrating against the U.S. military
presence. Prime Minister Hashimoto was even forced to take emer-
gency action to allow U.S. forces to remain there in light of Okina-
wa's refusal to renew land leases for U.S. bases.
I would also note that remarks by the former Prime Minister
Hosokawa last month here in the nation's capital in essence called
for a reexamination of the U.S. -Japan relationship. In his speech,
Prime Minister Hosokawa called for pulling U.S. Marines out of
Japan entirely, and implied that Tokyo was shouldering too much
of the costs associated with maintaining U.S. troops in the country.
Unfortunately, Japanese critics of the U.S. -Japan security rela-
tionship represent the growing number of Japanese who fail to re-
alize that the benefits of our bilateral security alliance are heavily
weighted in Tokyo's favor — a point that Administration officials
often seem to forget when responding to Japanese complaints about
our presence there.
To the west of Japan, a joint U.S. -South Korean proposal for
four-way security talks that would include North Korea and China
would aim for a permanent peace settlement on the peninsula. This
announcement follows a series of armed incursions by the North
Koreans into the demilitarized zone, in flagrant violation of the ar-
mistice agreement that has been in force since the Korean War
ended in 1953.
Almost as troublesome as the North Koreans' provocative actions
was the mixed message the Clinton administration conveyed in re-
sponse. Despite State Department condemnation of the DMZ inci-
dents, discussions between the U.S. -led KEDO and the North Kore-
ans proceeded in New York a few days later. These discussions
even focused on personnel being sent to North Korea for prepara-
tions for the two light water reactors that will eventually be pro-
vided to that country.
Finally, we cannot overlook the reverberations on the entire re-
gion generated by the recent crisis in the Taiwan strait.
I believe all the examples I have mentioned make the case for
no further reductions in U.S. troop levels or naval deployments in
Asia and the Pacific region, a concept embodied by the Defense De-
partment's "Nye initiative."
In addition, although multilateral approaches, such as the
ASEAN regional forum, or ARF, are helpful to our security inter-
ests in Northeast Asia, we should not let such efforts supplant the
bilateral alliances that remain the foundation of our security policy
there.
I would now like to introduce our distinguished panel of, I am
pleased to say, four witnesses, who all come to us from the private
sector. And for once we do not put our private sector panelists be-
hind an Administration witness or witnesses, because we did want
to hear specifically from people who are outside the Administration
to provide an analysis of the Administration's policies and actions,
as well as to provide more attention from the national media and,
therefore, to the American public on what you have to say, gentle-
men.
Mr. Kim. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make an opening state-
ment.
Mr. Bereuter. I was just about to finish and I will recognize
you, gentlemen.
Dr. Jonathan D. Pollack is Senior Advisor for International Pol-
icy at RAND in Santa Monica, California, where he is a specialist
in East Asian political and security affairs. He was part of the
RAND team to brief Mr. Berman and this member last year at
RAND in Santa Monica, for which we are grateful. U.S. -Korean se-
curity cooperation and China's defense modernization are among
Dr. Pollack's current areas of focus.
Dr. James J. Przystup is director of The Heritage Foundation's
Asian Studies Center. He has served with the State Department's
policy planning staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and
the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. He specializes in
the U.S. -Japan security relationship.
Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is a senior research professor at the Na-
tional Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies.
As the Institute's Asian team leader. Dr. Cronin conducts research
for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and the U.S. Pacific Command.
Dr. Marvin C. Ott just joined us, having returned only last night,
I believe, from Korea. He is a professor of national security policy
at the National War College. He previously served as deputy staff
director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He is an
expert in East Asian and Southeast Asian affairs, and has contrib-
uted articles to such publications as The Washington Post, the Los
Angeles Times, and Foreign Policy.
Gentlemen, your entire statements will be made a part of the
record, and I would ask that you limit your introductory remarks
to about 10 minutes each.
But, first of all, I want to recognize Mr. Kim for an opening
statement that he might like to make.
Mr. KlM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bereuter. The gentleman from California is recognized.
Mr. Kim. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding.
I would like to ask for the unanimous consent to submit my writ-
ten statement as official record.
Mr. Bereuter. Without objection.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kim appears in the appendix.]
Mr. Kim. I would like to summarize just a couple of minutes to
what I would like to say.
I am really concerned about the increased tension between North
and South Korea. An announcement made by one of the high level
North Korean officials saying that North Korea will no longer abide
by the responsibilities under the armistice agreement, that kind of
bothers me, and this could be led to misunderstanding and perhaps
even potential military confrontations.
I am really in complete agreement with Presidents Kim and
Clinton that we must defuse the recent tension in the Korean Pe-
ninsula, and must establish a long-term peace agreement to avoid
any possible military confrontations. This is why I support the full
party meeting concept, the proposal discussed by Presidents Kim
and Clinton during the recent meeting.
In fact, this is a concept that I brought up in this very sub-
committee 3 weeks ago, of which China and the United States will
facilitate honest and open dialog between North and South Korea.
This plan puts the ball in North Korea's court, and it will force
them to pursue the permanent peace agreement they have publicly
supported. This plan will certainly put their word into action.
Again, as for the situation in Okinawa, I can only extend my
heartfelt sympathy to those young children or family whose lives
were horribly changed by the deplorable action by three U.S. mili-
tary personnel. It is unfortunate that actions of three men have
jeopardized our relationship to a close ally and have tarnished the
image of all American personnel overseas.
I nope that this hearing closely examines the repercussion this
incident will have on the U.S. presence throughout Asia.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bereuter. Thank you very much. Congressman Kim.
We are now joined with the distinguished ranking minority mem-
ber of the subcommittee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Ber-
man. I welcome any opening comments that he might have before
we proceed.
Mr. Berman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Given that I am late
here and want to hear from the panel, I think I will, if I can, re-
serve my chance to extract any of this that is particularly relevant
after the witnesses have testified, and introduce a full statement
for the record.
Mr. Bereuter. Without objection, your whole statement will be
a part of the record, and I will certainly honor the gentleman's
other request.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Berman appears in the appen-
dix.]
Mr. Bereuter. I think we will recognize our distinguished panel-
ists in the order in which they are listed on the subcommittee
meeting notice. As I mentioned, your entire statements will be
made a part of the record,
Please proceed, Dr. Cronin, as you wish.
STATEMENT OF DR. PATRICK CRONIN, SENIOR RESEARCH
PROFESSOR— INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUD-
IES, NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Cronin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this op-
portunity to testify before the House International Relations Sub-
committee on Asia and the Pacific.
As you noted, these proceedings coincide with important diplo-
matic events in Asia, which I hope to place in a very broad context
with seven observations. Before beginning, however, I must men-
tion that I speak today as an individual observer of Asian security
policy, and my comments are my own and not those of the National
Defense University, or the Department of Defense.
As President Clinton concludes his Asian summitry today, he
and his Defense Department team can point to a number of posi-
tive achievements in U.S. security policy. One is that the United
States has revitalized its keystone security relationship with
Japan. Another achievement is the reaffirmation of U.S. solidarity
with the Republic of Korea in her search for an enduring solution
to ending the antagonism on the peninsula.
These developments signal a potential watershed in our security
relationships with Japan, and to a lesser extent. South Korea. If
we have not yet turned the corner, at least we have begun walking
down the block toward redefining our East Asian alliances away
from narrow threat-based deterrence toward opportunity-based bul-
warks of regional stability.
In short, U.S. -Asian security policy has finally entered the post-
cold war world.
This is important because my first point is that Northeast Asia
is likely to be the wellspring of international security in the next
century. Whether the international system is more or less stable,
whether the American people are more or less prosperous, and
whether the United States remains more or less a great power is
likely to be determined over the next half century in this region of
the world. Consequently, future U.S. administrations will have no
choice but to operate in the world in which Asian prerogatives are
at a minimum on a par with European prerogatives.
My second observation is that the U.S. Government needs to re-
examine its national security strategy in this region. What kind of
region does America want to see develop in two decades, and what
will be the role of an ascendant China, a more activist Japan, a
united Korea?
If the United States is to maximize its chances of retaining influ-
ence in East Asia in the next century, then it is essential that such
a review be strictly bipartisan. I believe this subcommittee can play
a pivotal role in such a review by agreeing on our fundamental
principles and objectives in advance, and relating those objectives
to realistic means. U.S. officials can go beyond reactive and reduc-
tionist policies and get on with leading the international system
into the 21st century.
Third, we need to marry up the energies of the Republican revo-
lution with the Vice President's re-invention of government in
order to optimize our ability to make rational national security pol-
icy for this explosive region of the world.
The current system succeeded in winning the cold war against a
now defunct Soviet empire, but it is not the right system to remain
competitive in the next century's world of great Asian powers. Un-
less we reorganize our governmental institutions to reflect the
world's shifting balance of power; unless we create a new central-
ized system for the adjudication of interagency policymaking; un-
less we make it easier to conduct governmental business in East
Asia; unless we reduce the number of laws that tie policymakers'
hands in dealing with major powers like China and Japan; unless
we do all of these things, then it does not matter how skillful our
political appointees are, for the fruits of their labor will be inad-
equate.
Fourth, we must seize the momentum in U.S. -Japan relations to
forge a lasting transformation of the security relationship into a
true alliance with a level of reciprocity commensurate with each
country's overall national strength.
The United States and Japan have before them a landmark op-
portunity to forge a new partnership that is at once more equal,
more global, and more comprehensive than has heretofore been the
case.
For instance, through a concerted review of Japan's two decade-
old defense guidelines, the United States may be able to raise the
collective Japanese consciousness as to Japan s obligations to inter-
national security. I believe our goal should be steady progress to-
ward even more emphasis on Article VI of the security treaty (that
is, regional security) instead of overriding concentration on Article
V (the almost exclusive defense of Japan).
We should seek greater Japanese contributions to American op-
erations in and through East Asia and the Pacific without under-
mining the stability provided by Japan's self-constrained security
policies.
Concomitant with this official review of defense guidelines, we
should be sure to expand debate between our two countries, and
here I think it is time to enhance our parliamentary exchanges in
order to ensure that our security debate has the widest possible
public support and understanding. We need, in sum, to create a
richer set of alliance values befitting a special relationship.
Fifth, having shored up our cornerstone alliance with Japan, we
now must harmonize our Asian alliance policy, in particular, that
with the Republic of Korea. U.S. policymakers can only make fu-
ture progress in our bilateral relationship with Japan if we also re-
double our efforts to redefine the U.S. -South Korean alliance from
a peninsula tripwire to a regional stabilizer.
The U.S.-ROK and U.S. -Japan alliances must become mutually
reenforcing if they are to be sustainable in coming decades. In any
event, they must not be allowed to work at cross purposes. We need
to work with our South Korean allies on two simultaneous tracks.
One, laying out a road map for bringing a lasting peace to the
peninsula, and the other, exploring the U.S. -Korean alliance after
the North Korean threat is blunted.
Sixth, the U.S.-ROK proposal for a "two-plus-two" process for cre-
ating a permanent peace treaty closing out the Korean War should
become the basis for establishing a political framework for North-
east Asia. Great power cooperation over North Korea's nuclear pro-
gram can be the crucible out of which can emerge not only a reduc-
tion in the enormous conventional military threat posed across the
demilitarized zone and an end to one of Asia's two divided nations,
but eventually a more stable security mechanism for all of East
Asia.
This framework has at least a chance of averting a hard landing
in North Korea. Moreover, while we cannot integrate China into
the region if Beijing officials refuse to uphold basic international
norms, we and our allies can help to make the political environ-
ment as conducive as possible to China's peaceful integration.
A regional political framework can and should be part of a larger
strategic understanding between the United States and China.
Seventh, and finally, the potential for a more peaceful Korean
Peninsula means that we need to accelerate our thinking regarding
our future military posture in the region. While any major post-war
transition in our force posture should remain on hold until further
progress can be made in North-South relations, the prospect of
such progress is sufficiently high as to require us to examine the
character of future military forces on the peninsula.
When the North Korean threat dissipates, the United States will
have a strong interest in preserving forward bases for flexible and
mobile forces ready to respond to regional emergencies. Similarly,
in Japan, what is significant is the depth of our commitments and
trust, intangibles that cannot be quantified by such outmoded ma-
trix as the quantity of military personnel stationed on foreign soil.
The United States can make its commitment to this region abun-
dantly clear for a variety of different sized forces. Whatever the
size and shape of those forces, however, they ought to represent our
most advanced platforms and most disciplined troops who will con-
vey the appropriate American image to the world's most dynamic
region.
In summary, the diplomacy of the past few days can mark a wa-
tershed in our East Asian strategy and posture. But if this diplo-
macy is to lead to long-lasting benefits for our national security,
then we will have to follow through with a number of fundamental
changes in how we do business.
I believe the stakes are too high to fail during this window of op-
portunity, when U.S. power remains preeminent.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Cronin appears in the appendix.]
Mr. Bereuter. Dr. Cronin, thank you very much for your testi-
mony.
Next, I would call upon Dr. James J. Przystup, director, Asian
Studies Center, The Heritage Foundation, for his statement.
You may proceed. Dr. Przystup.
STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES J. PRZYSTUP, DIRECTOR— ASIAN
STUDIES CENTER, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Dr. Przystup. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure return-
ing to this room, but I have to say that it looks a lot different look-
ing at it from this side of the table as opposed to that side of the
table. It has always been more interesting, I think, on the other
side.
My remarks will focus on U.S. security interests in Asia, particu-
larly. Northeast Asia; the relations with Japan, China, the Korean
Peninsula; as well as Bill Clinton's management of those relation-
ships.
For close to a century the United States has consistently pursued
three major strategic objectives toward Asia: freedom of the seas,
access to markets, and preventing any single power or group of
powers from dominating the region.
The United States has pursued these interests with remarkable
consistency while adjusting tactics to fit the moment. For example,
in 1909, Teddy Roosevelt played balance of power with Japan
against Russia. Then as Japan's power waxed under the mainland
in China and Manchuria, Presidents Taft and Wilson shifted to-
ward China. In the 1920's, the United States tried multilateralism
with the Washington Conference System. And after 1945, Washing-
ton evolved a bilateral alliance structure to contain first the USSR
and then China. In the 1970's, President Nixon joined with China
to oppose Soviet hegemony. These historic interests remain endur-
ing and valid today.
Today's Asia security system is based on the bilateral alliance
structure which the United States evolved during the cold war.
And the U.S. -Japan alliance remains the cornerstone of that sys-
tem, and the foundation of Asia's economic dynamism.
As President Clinton has lately rediscovered, this stability and
prosperity is a direct enemy and consequence to the security and
well being of all Americans. Even with the end of the cold war, this
alliance remains critical to American national interests. The alli-
ance enhances our ability to keep Asia open to American influence.
U.S. forward-deployed forces in Japan have helped to deter aggres-
sion against American allies and friends in the region.
The strategic importance of the U.S. force presence in Japan was
recently and clearly demonstrated last March when the President
ordered deployment of the aircraft carrier Independence from Japan
to waters near Taiwan at the time of Taiwan's Presidential elec-
tions.
As for Bill Clinton and Asia, I think in judging Bill Clinton's
Asia policy I would simply return to Ronald Reagan's famous ques-
tion, "Are we better off today than we were 4 years ago in Asia?"
And across the board I would argue that the answer is clearly "No."
Indeed, Bill Clinton's Asia policy, like his foreign policy in gen-
eral, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the international
system. What drives that system is not Somalia, not Haiti, not
Bosnia, not even Vietnam, but relations among the great powers.
And here our relations with Tokyo, Beijing, and Seoul have been
both troubled and troubling. Here is why.
With respect to Japan, yesterday Bill Clinton reaffirmed the
U.S. -Japan security alliance in Tokyo. Given the challenges now
facing the United States and Asia from the Korean Peninsula to
China's increasing aggressive conduct toward Taiwan and in the
South China Sea, this reaffirmation is both timely and necessary.
This is so because for the better part of the Administration's first
2V2 years Bill Clinton's Japan policy put at risk this critical rela-
tionship.
The Administration came into office committed to forging a new
U.S. -Japan relationship. The Japan policy, however, was based on
a series of interlocking miscalculations.
The first was with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Security is-
sues could be de-emphasized in the U.S. -Japan relationship. The
second was the overemphasis placed on reducing the bilateral trade
deficit. Trade policy, originally conceived of, is but one part of an
overall Japan strategy, quickly expanded in time and effort to be-
come almost the entirety of the Administration's approach to
Japan.
Seeing Japan through a mid-1980's time warp has immutable
economic juggernaut the Clinton team committed to applying in-
tense external pressure to get its way. This, even as Japan was
mired in the most serious economic recession of any developed
country since the 1930's.
The final miscalculation was that in the post-cold war world this
pressure could be applied with little political collateral damage.
Unfortunately, the Administration was wrong across the board. We
need only remember Prime Minister Hosokawa saying no to Bill
Clinton's demands for managed trade in 1994, and then last spring,
the Administration's threatening a trade war over auto and auto
parts. And finally, the President canceled this to Tokyo last No-
vember even as the crisis in Okinawa smoldered.
Shortly before that cancellation the Assistant Secretary for East
Asian and Pacific Affairs announced that such a decision would be
tantamount to a body blow to the alliance. Japanese media and po-
litical elite were quick to note the President's political priorities
when shortly thereafter, and in similar political circumstances with
the Congress, he did find time to visit Ireland and Israel.
As for the impact of Bill Clinton's policies, suffice it to say that
the Administration's claims that its trade policies are responsible
for the recent decline in Japan's trade surplus represent the high-
est— the political spin of the highest order, a striking example of
post hoc/procter hoc reasoning. The root causes are to be found in
the impact of global economic forces operating in Japan.
In reality, a substantial appreciation of the yen, high Japanese
production costs are transforming Japan's economy, even as Clyde
Prestowicz noted in last Sunday's Washington Post.
As for the political side, according to U.S.I.A. polls, in June 1995,
during the auto negotiations close to 40 percent of Japanese polls
saw trade conflicts as eroding the alliance, and in that same poll
51 percent considered relations poor, and only 41 percent saw them
as good.
In January 1996, 48 still thought the relationship in poor shape.
By contrast, in May 1992, 43 percent thought the alliance strong,
despite trade frictions. And yesterday ABC released a poll which
found that 70 percent of Americans find the Japanese unwilling to
reduce the trade deficit, and a majority see Japan as an
untrustworthy ally.
Across the board Bill Clinton's Japan policy has ill-served the re-
lationship once described by Ambassador Mike Mansfield as Ameri-
ca's most important, bar none.
As for Okinawa and the present summit, the Administration did
the right thing: consolidating bases, restructuring training but
maintaining forces at current levels.
In Japan, after the emotional fire storm reaction to last year's in-
cident, the Japanese public took a sober second look at Northeast
Asia, and found it a rough, tough, nuclear armed, potentially vola-
tile neighborhood, one in which Japan had few real friends.
Though at first counter-intuitive, the alliance is more important
for Japan today than it ever was during the cold war. In his recent
Seattle speech former Prime Minister Hosokawa noted that the
value of U.S. bases in Japan had actually increased in the after-
math of the cold war. Prime Minister Hashimoto has agreed now
to study Japan's military role during the potential conflict in Asia.
10
Even as his political rival, Mr. Hosokawa has called for Japan to
accept collective security.
Things are moving ahead in terms of the U.S. -Japan security re-
lationship.
On to China, Bill Clinton's approach to China could be character-
ized best as rhetoric in search of policy. Indeed, what has passed
for policy has been a series of credibility-draining exercise. And
credibility is the coin of great power relationships.
In effect. Bill Clinton has turned the White House into a waffle
shop when it comes to China. We need only recall the flip-flops on
MFN, Lee Teng-Hui, on the hesitancy on China's occupation of
Mischief Reef; 3 months to get a diplomatic protest out; a similar
expression over China's missile test last July in response to Presi-
dent Lee's visit to Cornell; and they lost in the fog approach last
December when the carrier task force transited the South China
Sea after China's legislative elections had again drawn Beijing's
military ire; and now the public agonizing over nonproliferation
sanctions, just to let Beijing know that the Administration feels its
pain.
For the better part of 3 years, until last month, with the Inde-
pendence and Nimitz making clear U.S. interests with regard to
Taiwan, the Administration appeared to be a disinterested spec-
tator to events transpiring in this strategically critical region.
Indeed, China's emergence as a great power, given its resources,
population, economic dynamism, and military potential, will be the
dividing structural issue for the international system for the first
quarter of the next century. I do not think there is a close second,
and if there is, it is certainly not Bosnia.
As for China, as the next threat and the need for a new contain-
ment strategy, let me say that I am agnostic about China, and I
think we need to think about China as a much more complex re-
ality; that China is neither black nor white, but a very ambiguous
gray.
Today, much of the policy debate revolves around the question of
whether China will be cooperative or hegemonic; whether it will be
black or white, as if the two were mutually exclusive. In the west-
ern hemisphere, however, they go hand in hand. For over 200 years
in our neighborhood we have been both cooperative and hegemonic.
Ninety-five percent of the time we are cooperative. Trade flourishes
and everyone prospers. But 5 percent of the time we take the
gloves off and we act like a dominant power we are.
So where do we go from here with China? A good starting point
would be to begin to treat China with the respect to a great power,
and for China to begin to act like a responsible 21st century power.
We can do if our interests are clear, are pursued consistently, and
we can do so without being confrontational.
In the end we cannot make China do what it does not want to
do. The best we can do is, together with our friends and allies, to
attempt to create an environment which will incline China to do
the right thing. If afterwards we find China failing to do so, we can
adjust our policies accordingly.
Finally, a few remarks on Korea and yesterday's two-plus-two
proposal. Without knowing any of the details, let me just offer a
few observations.
11
First, could it work? And I think the answer is of course it could.
China has an interest in keeping the North going and making sure
that the North does not start any trouble on the peninsula. China
also has an interest in expanding its own influence in Seoul and
demonstrating cooperation with the United States at MFN time.
But China has refrained from joining the already ongoing multilat-
eral effort with regard to KEDO. If the lineup is three against one,
I do not know why the North will go along unless it is truly in dire
economic straits or the Chinese put real pressure on their allies,
which Beijinghas thus far been reluctant to do.
If the Chinese were not fully consulted in advance and signed up,
this proposal, at least as put out yesterday, has more of election
year politics about it than diplomacy. And from Beijing's initial re-
sponse, it does not appear that the Chinese have signed on the dot-
ted line.
There are also a couple of downsides that we should keep in
mind. Once again, the North has demonstrated that even as it mis-
behaves, they get something for it. Now, I know the talk has been
that this has been discussed even before the demonstration at the
DMZ. But nevertheless, this is similar to their decision with regard
to the IAEA, which in fact produced the opening of the first direct
channel with North Korea after that decision in 1994.
Finally, the fact that the two-plus-two offer was made at the re-
quest of Seoul made presage an even larger strategic shift on the
part of Seoul toward Beijing. Because China has better relations
with North Korea than the United States, and expanding relation-
ship with South Korea, Seoul may see China as the player that can
ultimately deliver the North.
Perhaps one indicator of the way in which the wind is blowing
in Seoul is to be found in last year's China/ROK summit, and the
very strong anti-Japanese declaration both political leaders put
their names to at the end of that conference.
I think I will stop with that, and turn it over to the next panel-
ist. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Przystup appears in the appen-
dix.]
Mr. Bereuter. Thank you very much, Dr. Przystup.
Now I would like to call upon Dr. Jonathan Pollack, who is the
senior advisor. International Policy at the RAND Corporation.
Dr. Pollack, you may proceed as you wish.
STATEMENT OF DR. JONATHAN POLLACK, SENIOR ADVISOR-
INTERNATIONAL POLICY, RAND CORPORATION
Dr. Pollack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to present my views to the
Asia and Pacific Subcommittee. I am submitting a short written
statement for the record, and I am also providing the subcommittee
with copies of a more detailed assessment of future U.S. strategy
in Asia recently published by the Council on Foreign Relations and
a review of U.S. policy in Asia in 1995, published in Asian Survey.
I would hope that they could be entered into the record.
Mr. Bereuter. Without objection, those supplementary items
will be made a part of the subcommittee record.
Dr. Pollack. Thank you.
12
Mr. Chairman, President Clinton's visit to the Republic of Korea
and to Japan provides an important reminder of the enduring
American commitment to the stability and well being of Northeast
Asia. Throughout the cold war, our bilateral security treaties with
Korea and Japan defined America's principal security obligations in
the region, and the continuity of both relationships over the last
half decade underscores the intrinsic value the United States at-
taches to these ties, with or without the Soviet Union.
But this judgment can obscure the forces at work that will rede-
fine these ties in the years to come. A shared desire by leaders on
both sides of the Pacific to reaffirm the centrality of U.S. relations
with Korea and Japan cannot be expected by itself to sustain these
ties on an open-ended basis.
If the U.S. -Korean and U.S. -Japanese alliances are to retain
their vitality and relevance, neither we nor our regional partners
should assume that the status quo is indefinitely sustainable.
The Clinton administration's commitment embodied in the East
Asian's strategy review of February 1995, and reiterated in the se-
curity declaration signed in Tokyo early today by the President to
maintain the forward deployment of 100,000 U.S. forces in the Pa-
cific, though comprehensible in relation to current defense planning
requirements, would no longer be credible in the event of appre-
ciable change and the regional security environment.
This judgment seems particularly relevant on the Korean Penin-
sula, the principal locale that has shaped U.S. regional military
strategy for decades.
Senior American officials continue to assert that either implosion
or explosion of the North Korean state is inevitable. Although no
one is bold enough to predict when such events might transpire,
the fact that our defense planners point to North Korea's inevitable
demise underscores an obvious judgment. The time to be planning
for Northeast Asia beyond the divided Korean Peninsula is now,
not when end game unfolds in the North.
It is gratifying that President Clinton has opted to again visit
Northeast Asia after a nearly 3-year hiatus, but this visit will
quickly recede into memory unless the Clinton administration,
working in close conjunction with the Congress and with our re-
gional allies, signal unambiguously its intention to address the im-
mediate problems as well as the longer-term challenges.
In my judgment, a viable long-term U.S. strategy entails three
central components.
First, preparing fully to address existing threats to regional
peace and stability in which North Korea is the central factor. Sec-
ond, adapting our bilateral security alliances to the emergent chal-
lenges of the next century. And, third, achieving a more satisfac-
tory and sustainable relationship, including in the security arena,
with the region's ascendant powers, in particular, China.
These three components are interrelated. In my remarks today
I will limit myself to how these factors interact in the context of
the security of Korea and Japan.
Let me begin with North Korea. It is very difficult to recall when
the United States and the Republic of Korea were not preoccupied
by the North Korean issue in one form or another. Many observers,
of course, insist that North Korean behavior is impossible to fath-
13
om and predict, but this is true only in a tactical, not a strategic
sense.
North Korean strategy, in fact, remains eminently predictable.
Its leaders, whoever they may be, continue to maximize their lever-
age very skillfully. They seek to parlay their vulnerable, isolated
circumstances to advantage, hoping to seize the policy initiatives
wherever possible, but without conferring legitimacy or normalcy
on relations with their far more powerful neighbor to the south.
Given the North's extraordinary isolation and increasingly par-
lous economic and social circumstances, this is no mean feat. North
Korea's goal is to avoid irrelevance and ultimately extinction. Its
survival as a system is predicated on somehow keeping intact and
afloat without taking political steps that will lead to the unraveling
of state power. Hence, the extreme aversion in Pyongyang to regu-
lar dealings with Seoul and the continued cultivation of direct ties
with the United States.
North Korea in this regard continues to pursue a very high risk
strategy on nuclear weapons, on ballistic missiles, on the armistice
agreement, and even on humanitarian assistance. The United
States needs to walk a very fine line between prudent exploration
of ties with a very dangerous regime without undermining our far
more consequential ties with the Republic of Korea.
It is therefore especially important that the President decided to
visit Korea after initially and unwisely opting to limit his North-
east Asia visit to Japan alone. To have missed the opportunity to
reaffirm U.S.-ROK political and security ties, especially at a time
of mounting concern about potential volatility in the North, would
have been precisely the wrong signal to send — to Seoul, to
Pyongyang, and to the region as a whole.
A Presidential visit, however, should also signal our readiness to
attend to the near-term uncertainties on the peninsula, and to
begin by word, and deed, to plan for the longer run. In this context,
I applaud the Administration's joint initiative with the ROK for a
two-plus-two peace framework on the peninsula. This formula
keeps attention focused primarily, but not exclusively, on the rela-
tionship between the two Koreas, with the United States and
China prepared to serve as guarantors for whatever agreement
might transpire between Seoul and Pyongyang.
For good measure, this close consultation with the ROK ensures
that North Korea makes no headway whatsoever in its efforts to
inject friction and cleavage in the U.S.-ROK alliance.
Of course, we need to signal clearly that we are ready to move
ahead with North Korea, but only if this process fully and appro-
priately serves our longer-term interests on the peninsula as well
as those of our South Korean allies.
Let me now turn to our alliances. As we begin to discern, if not
presume, a Northeast Asia beyond the North Korean threat, the
central challenge in America's alliances with both Korea and Japan
will be to ensure their viability into the next century. This is easier
said than done.
There is the inevitable risk of pushing too far and too fast in a
manner that could undermine our political, security, and economic
interests. But there is an equal risk of being overly inertial in our
alliance strategies. In this regard I believe there is a natural
14
complementarity of interests between the expectations of the Amer-
ican people that our regional security partners fulfill their respon-
sibilities in a manner commensurate with their capabilities, needs
and desires, and the parallel desire of our regional partners for a
larger say in decisions that affect their long-term national inter-
ests.
A new alliance bargain would be less asymmetrical in patterns
of influence and decisionmaking, more responsive to preferences
and sensitivities of local constituencies and more attentive to how
we and our regional partners will resolve the conflicts of interest
that inevitably arise in bilateral relations.
Indeed, on the expectation that immediate threats to the physical
security of either Korea or Japan diminish, we should anticipate
the potential for heightened disputes on issues from base location
to technology transfer to burden sharing will increase accordingly.
These differences, however, reflect the inevitable growing pains
as both Korea and Japan strive to define an alliance framework
relevant to very different circumstances. The recent tensions over
Okinawa and comparable pressures to renegotiate land use agree-
ments in Korea reflect the realities that the United States will
need to address if it is to ensure continued support for security ties,
not only with leaders in both countries, but with their domestic
publics.
But the United States and Japan, and the United States and
Korea, clearly benefit far more from sustained close relationships
than by going our separate ways. Under the latter circumstances
the bonds and obligations that have developed over decades would
attenuate, and the regional security environment would become
much less predictable.
The United States must therefore convey unambiguously that a
redefined security tie with either or both countries is not the pre-
cursor to U.S. disengagement.
But there is a parallel, and potentially more daunting challenge.
Throughout the cold war the U.S. -Japan alliance and the U.S.-
Korea alliance were kept highly distinct from one another. This
seemed appropriate to the very different security challenges faced
by the two countries, and the character and expectations of the
U.S. political and military role in those states.
However, should the North Korean threat either diminish sharp-
ly or disappear altogether, the peninsular logic that has defined
U.S. -Korean relations for decades would cease, with the framework
of U.S. -Japan alliance ties and of U.S. -Korean alliance ties much
more regional in its thrust.
The logic of U.S. -Japan defense collaboration, as evidenced by Ja-
pan's newly enunciated national defense program outline and secu-
rity declaration that President Clinton signed today in Tokyo, also
entails dimensions that are much more regional in their logic and
less exclusively focused on the defense of the home islands.
But the relationship between Japan and Korea remains ex-
tremely unhealthy, as reflected most recently in the sharp dispute
earlier this year between Tokyo and Seoul, on delineating their re-
spective maritime boundaries and exclusive economic zones. It ill
behooves long-term American interests that we retain separate vig-
orous security ties with two very important market economies and
15
democratic neighbors without being able to achieve full normalcy in
their bilateral relations.
It should therefore be an explicit goal of U.S. policy to bridge
these differences which neither country nor the United States can
possibly benefit, and it is incumbent on the United States to play
a lead role in this process.
Let me now turn to China. These hearing are limited principally
to Japan and Korea, but it is impossible to think about either coun-
try's long-term future or long-term U.S. regional strategy without
a clear sense of how China fits in relation to both.
Indeed, the U.S.-ROK initiative for a two-plus-two framework
presumes a full and constructive relationship between China, the
United States and China's regional neighbors. Without such a rela-
tionship, it would be impossible to achieve a stable, long-term polit-
ical and strategic framework for the region.
China, for its part, voices growing concern that the United States
intends to employ its security ties with Tokyo, to inhibit China's
full development and incorporation within the emergent regional
order. This is clearly not a preferred outcome or long-term goal of
U.S. strategy. But the uncertainties about Beijing's longer-term
ambitions and capabilities remain ample, even as all regional
states, as well as the United States, seek to become fully involved
in China's economic development.
As the United States seeks to fashion its future ties with both
Korea and Japan, it is critical that we be able to explore fully and
frankly our respective interests and relations with Beijing. This is
as relevant to dealing with a successfully modernizing and coopera-
tive Chinese state as it is to one that could well pose serious politi-
cal and security challenges to its neighbors. Without such a dialog,
each country could well proceed to pursue its interests and policy
concerns in largely independent and uncoordinated fashion.
It will only be through such a process that China can become
more sensitized to the long-term need to maximize the opportuni-
ties for realizing a durable peaceful regional order.
Such a prospect, however, will not emerge of its own accord.
Even if the United States seeks to reinvigorate alliance ties that
have been frayed with both Korea and Japan, we must look beyond
present realities to longer term regional possibilities on which
America's security and livelihood will depend.
This is a challenge that goes well beyond the single and rather
brief Presidential visit to Northeast Asia, and must involve the
Congress in a full and constructive role as well. The time to begin
is now.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Pollack appears in the appendix.]
Mr. Bereuter. Thank you. Dr. Pollack, for your presentation.
Next, I would like to call on Dr. Marvin Ott, professor. National
Security Policy of the National War College.
Dr. Ott, thank you for your extraordinary effort to be here with
us today, and for your testimony. You may proceed as you wish.
16
STATEMENT OF DR. MARVIN OTT, PROFESSOR— NATIONAL
SECURITY POLICY, NATIONAL WAR COLLEGE
Dr. Ott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a real pleasure to be
here. I apologize for my somewhat tardy arrival, and if either my
oral or written statement is less than fully coherent, it is because
it was written on an overnight flight from Seoul last night. So bear
with me.
Rather than read anything, let me make a few sort of largely ex-
temporaneous observations.
The comments from the other panelists, I think, are to be ex-
pected. They focus fairly heavy on policy issues, and immediate pol-
icy concerns. That obviously will be the burden of our question ses-
sion. But since I am now called a professor and play that role, let
me be professorial for just a moment and try to simply look at
trends and dynamics in the region as they impact upon us and as
they have been reflected in U.S. security policy in the region.
This subcommittee needs no sales pitch on the importance of the
region in security terms. The region, two countries alone, Korea
and Japan, 85,000 forward-deployed U.S. forces. While the U.S.
force level in Europe has been drawn down dramatically, those in
Northeast Asia and East Asia more generally have not been drawn
down. In fact, there has been a very firm reaffirmation repeatedly
that they will, in fact, remain at the present 100,000, roughly, for-
ward-deployed.
This against a backdrop of having fought two wars in this region
in the last half decade, this region was used as a staging area for
a third. I might also make the sort of — maybe kind of hop in
through a policy observation. This is a hard region, this is a serious
play. They are serious people, serious stakes. There is nothing soft
about Northeast Asia.
So with that sort of backdrop the region has loomed very large
in U.S. security policy. I am reminded that George Cannon, when
he wrote the original containment article, the ex-article that gave
the central strategy for containment, identified potentially two re-
gions being of critical priority to defend in a containment policy:
one being Western Europe and the other being this area. Northeast
Asia. And the truth of that observation at that time is even more
applicable today.
What I would like to do is make a couple of observations about
the shifting security environment in the region and how that's im-
pacted then upon U.S. security policy more generally.
During the cold war the United States put together a framework
of essentially a bilateral security relationship with the U.S. -Japan
initial security treaty at the core. The essential bargain that was
worked out between Prime Minister Yoshida and General
McArthur whereby Japan focuses energies on economic develop-
ment, economic reconstitution and growth, and the United States
would take over the leadership of security matters, and Japan, in
turn, would be host to American security forces and cooperate with
the United States in a variety of foreign policy and security fronts.
That essential agreement in Tokyo then provided the foundation
stone for a security presence that, as you know, included the sub-
stantial U.S. deployment in Korea, outgrowth of the Korean War;
substantial facilities at Clark and Subic Bay in the Philippines;
17
U.S. forces scattered across the South Pacific headquartered back
at CINCPAC, PATCOM; and with an unstated, somewhat ambigu-
ous security relationship with Taiwan. And even from the time of
the 1972 period, the Nixon visit to China, a growing quasi-alHance
relationship with China. So a rather remarkable and elaborate se-
curity structure emerged in Asia. This included bilateral defense
treaties with Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand,
Korea and Japan.
That was essentially a threat-based system. Now, the threat was
the Soviet Union, this cold war. It was strategically clear there was
a kind of conceptual clarity to the whole thing.
That environment then began to change, and it was not just the
end of the cold war. The removal of the U.S. presence from South
Vietnam, the loss of the facilities at Cam Rhan Bay, the loss of the
facilities at Clark and Subic in 1992, when the Philippine Senate
voted against the U.S. treaty, the apparent political changes occur
in Japan with the declining fortunes unexpectedly of the bastian of
support for the U.S. security treaty in the form of the LDP party
and its apparent eclipse, the disintegration of the quasi-security re-
lationship with China in the wake of Tiananmen.
The growing trade tensions with Japan for the first time in the
early 1990's began to spill over into the security relationship and
are highlighted perhaps more recently in Japanese tensions emerg-
ing out of the Okinawa events and the problems with soldiers
there.
That all, in addition to the end of the cold war, represented a
real — a slow motion, but a real sea change in both the security en-
vironment and the kind of security strategy that the United States
could develop in response to that environment.
The strategy that began to emerge in response to these events
has already been alluded to: the East Asia strategy initiative and
subsequent sequels and elaborations, which essentially sought to
develop a non-threat-based strategy. The Soviet Union has gone
away. The security rationale for the prior system had disappeared,
and then the question became how do you, if you want to maintain
a rationale for 100,000 forward-deployed forces in Asia when there
is no threat, and the East Asia strategy initiative attempted to get
at that, and essentially came down to an argument, which was
echoed in the region, that the United States was needed as a kind
of security reassurance, a stabilizing force within the region.
And out of that came a variety of initiatives, summarize it in a
word, the cooperative engagement, places, not bases, an East Asia
strategy initiative that involved a kind of dispersal of U.S. forces,
particularly in Southeast Asia, while reaffirming the Korean and
Japanese relationships.
Just to bring this to a close, what is striking to me is how rapidly
that particular era seems to have passed. That was supposed to be
the time, post-cold war, when we developed these rather subtle and
lower priority security relationships and economics went to the
fore, and U.S. policy became essentially an economic game.
I think very rapidly in the face of events in the Taiwan straits
and in Korea, Soutn China Sea, political atmospherics out of
Beijing, we are seeing a reemergence of security as a priority in the
region, and that has been highlighted and sort of affirmed by what
18
I think is a really remarkable series of summit meetings in Korea
and Japan.
Let me then turn to a couple of specific observations about the
countries of immediate concern.
With regard to Japan, I guess the U.S. -Japan alliance remains
the linchpin of the U.S. security presence in this part of the world.
And because that alliance seemed to be eroding in terms of its sup-
port— Okinawa, trade tensions and all the rest — ^you had with the
"Nye initiative," with which this committee is familiar, the attempt
to rebuild the relationship. Then came these other events, Taiwan
and so on.
It seems to me what has happened is an extraordinary turn-
around in Japan. You have suddenly seen almost in a matter of
weeks public opinion, official opinion suddenly refocused on the se-
curity relationship, and you are seeing a sudden reaffirmation of its
critical importance both to Japan and to the United States.
I might just note before leaving Japan that in some respects —
I think we might keep in mind how remarkable this security rela-
tionship is. It is a kind of a miracle, if I can use that phrase. You
have, after all, almost 50,000 American forces deployed in one of
the two most advanced countries in the world in terms of econom-
ics, one of the two economic superpowers of the world, a country
that has perhaps the third or second largest military budget in the
world, a highly advanced country; yet this is a garrison force left
over from an occupying army from World War II, and it is still
there. And it is still there at the request and support of the host
government.
I would suggest to you that if you wrote the political science text-
book in advance of these events and posited such a thing, no one
would believe it is possible. So I think it is worth keeping that in
mind.
Turning to China, very briefly, I, like most, see China in terms
of an emerging great power on the international scene, and as a
number of analysts have pointed out, whenever a new great power
emerges, whether it is Japan, or Germany, either Imperial or Nazi,
or Bolshevik Russia, Communist Russia, it places huge strains
upon the existing international system. In each of those other in-
stances the result was a cataclysm, international conflict. The great
task of policy is to somehow cope with the emergence of China
without such an outcome.
I had some material, and I think time is fleeting, so I am not
going to read it, but suffice it to say China is not easy. There is
much in terms of Chinese — the Chinese historic sense of the middle
kingdom, of its historic civilizational preeminence, the great pride,
the depth of nationalistic fervor that goes with that, combined with
a sense of humiliation and degradation of the hands of the West,
the colonial powers, that is a potent brew. Grandeur and resent-
ment create a difficult equation. That, combined with the relative
isolation and parochialism of this regime, its culture remoteness,
the absence of a figure like a Chow En Lai, who can act as an in-
terpreter and a bridge to the West. It is as if when the guns fired
at Tiananmen more than just the students and the people in the
square were killed. There was something killed, something died in
19
terms of the regime, in Beijing's ability to deal with the rest of the
world.
So China is going to be a tough problem, and there is both a
clash of interest and the clash of emotion, and it is a potent brew.
With regard to Korea, maybe just a couple of very brief points.
No one knows what is going to happen in Korea. And specifically
no one knows what is happening in the North. I am reminded of
the fact that in 1989 a conference was convened and then divided
Berlin, most of the world's top experts from Germany, and the sub-
ject was the future of the East German regime. And the consensus
opinion among this truly expert body of analysts was that the Ger-
man regime would last for probably at least another 10 years, and
you might look to some sort of gradual loosening and pluralization
of the regime over that timeframe. One month later the wall came
down and the East German regime was history.
So it is a useful warning to us in terms of some humility in
terms of trying to read outcomes.
I would be happy to play with some of the hard and soft and no-
landing scenarios, and we can go into that. One other observation
on Korea.
Again, trying to sort of talk systemically, I think the fundamen-
tal fact that has to be kept in mind about Korea is there has been
a sea change in the balance of power on the peninsula. What has
been happening over time was the growing strength and capabili-
ties of the south and the continued deterioration of the economic
foundations in the North. The outcome of the Korean contest be-
tween Pyongyang and Seoul is already over. We already know the
outcome.
United Korea will be ruled from Seoul. The question is the mo-
dalities of that, but that we know. But Pyongyang also knows sure-
ly that there has been this remorseless shift of power, balance of
power and capability against them in the peninsula, and I think
what you are seeing in the DMZ is a desperate attempt to try to
escape the box by establishing a relationship with, of all places, the
United States as the one place that can save them from a sort of
remorseless grinding down. And the reason the United States is
identified, not China, not Russia, the reason the United States is
identified is that we are seen to have leverage on the South, to
keep the South under control, and keep Tokyo under control.
Let me conclude with those remarks, and I will be happy to par-
ticipate in the discussion.
['The prepared statement of Dr. Ott appears in the appendix.]
Mr. Bereuter. Thank you very much. Dr. Ott.
I will begin my questions by mentioning that I think, in light of
a couple of things you have said, the subject of the quick end to
the German Democratic Republic seemed to be on the mind of not
only the North Koreans, but the South Koreans as well. They have
some pause now, I think, about how to proceed in light of that pos-
sible quick demise of the German Democratic Republic, and poten-
tially the North Korean Government.
And, second, I think you were right to try to focus some com-
ments upon the Chinese historical perspective and their experience
with colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. I think that is
unappreciated in this country by and large.
20
I would like to focus first on the Korean Peninsula. The two-plus-
two proposal which was voiced a day or two ago is not a new pro-
posal, but is resurrected, and there are several questions that come
to mind. Several of you also mentioned this two-plus-two proposal.
When I asked the Chinese in August whether they were inter-
ested in playing some role in KEDO, even as an observer, they
quickly responded, "We will have our impact in another way di-
rectly with the North Koreans, and not through some multilateral
effort."
So, do you think in fact there is any interest on the part of the
Chinese to participate in a two-plus-two arrangement with respect
to the Korean Peninsula? What possible role could they offer if they
chose to? And, third, do you feel that the PRC's role would be con-
structive? And, fourth, what role do the Russians plan in any kind
of peaceful solution to the Korean Peninsula standoff and conflict,
the estrangement that exists there today?
They continue to say they want to be involved in it. I would wel-
come responses to this general set of questions from any or all of
the panelists.
Dr. Pollack. Yes. I think it would be premature to assume that
the Chinese would not be interested in such a relationship, or
framework, though, at least according to this morning's Washing-
ton Post, the framework came as a surprise to the Foreign Ministry
press spokesman. Whether or not we had broached this fully with
the Chinese, therefore, is not entirely clear, and the Chinese tend
not to like surprises.
Now, you could argue that the Chinese enjoy enviable cir-
cumstances at the moment on the peninsula in the sense that they
rather like a weak North Korea, because it gives them running
room. As that weak North Korea tries to accommodate the United
States, it gives Beijing latitude and running room with the South
that they did not enjoy previously.
On the other hand, they still retain at various levels, including
at the military level, a continued relationship with North Korea,
but it is not widely appreciated.
That said, I think the Chinese have watched as North Korea has
progressively tried to work its way out of an existing set of con-
straints. It is my own judgment that the Chinese do from time to
time deal privately and quietly with the North Koreans on these
matters. They do not want to humiliate them publicly.
So a two-plus-two framework would have the virtue of locking in
North Korea to a set of relationships that it may be made more dif-
ficult for them to oppose — in fact, it would be more difficult for
them to oppose — if the Chinese were to signal some kind of a de-
gree of interest.
Would it be constructive? Well, you know, again, I think the Chi-
nese enjoy a very enviable circumstance in the peninsula right
now. They deal with both Koreas. Their relationship with South
Korea in various respects is booming in economic terms, and begin-
ning to develop in political terms.
For these reasons, you could argue that it only reflects the reali-
ties that exist, and that the United States and China would be the
appropriate guarantors of any agreement that might emerge.
21
But I think anything that makes the Chinese role more expHcit,
more committal, since they enjoy this neither fish nor fowl position
would be very helpful. Though I do think fundamentally their role
is constructive already, this may provide an opportunity to test
North Korea, though, frankly, given North Korea's record, I am not
overly optimistic that they are going to be seized by this and see
the light of day, and that is a real problem.
The other aspect, leaving out the Russians is a problem, and it
seems to me if this begins to assume any momentum at all it will
be necessary to somehow vest the Russians in this process. I do not
have any immediate ideas on how that might be done, but you just
simply cannot leave them out of that process given that they have
their own links into the north that also continue.
Mr. Bereuter. Would anyone else like to respond? Dr. Ott.
Dr. Ott. Just a couple of very brief thoughts.
First of all, what does this offer the Chinese that they might
want to respond to?
I think what the proposal offers to them is a chance to partici-
pate in working out the security future of this part of Northeast
Asia, which is obviously a vital concern to them.
Back to the point about Chinese views on the world and on secu-
rity issues, one of the great sources of Chinese resentment is a feel-
ing that the rules have been written for the international game
without their being at the table, and they are being asked to accept
and abide by rules and norms that they have had no role in writing
and creating.
So with that in mind, this is an opportunity to go to the Chinese
and say, OK, we have a basic decision here that is going to have
to be made, a fundamental negotiation about the security frame-
work for this peninsula, we want you to participate with us.
And my guess is that essential offer would be sort of in a strate-
gic sense attractive in Beijing.
Just quickly on the comment of what the Chinese interests are.
Specifically, in Korea, despite the fact that China, I characterize
China as a rising power, and in that sense revisionists, with regard
to Korea, it is a status quo power. I think Jonathan has suggested
that. The Chinese do not want a conflict on the peninsula. They
want it to remain stable. They do not want North Korea to get
away. They want to keep a buffer against their border, a Marxist-
Leninist buffer.
If North Korea goes down, it does not take much imagination to
see all eyes turning to Beijing and wondering when Beijing will be
yet the next Communist regime to go, and the Chinese know that.
So the Chinese will be very nervous, I think, if North Korea in fact
disappears.
Having said that, if a united Korea is clearly in the cards, the
Chinese will want a voice in what that Korea looks like, and the
main thing they will want, and this will be my last comment, is
they will want a united Korea that excludes the security, military
presence of any other outside powers. That means us. And that will
become a fundamental point of disagreement between the South
Korean regime and ourselves on the one hand, and China on the
other.
22
Dr. Przystup. I would just add that there is a strong incentive
for China to go along with this given the interest that it has at
stake on the peninsula, not only the interest in terms of the north,
but in terms of expanding its influence in the South. And from a
long-term strategic perspective, I agree with Marvin. Their game is
to get us off the peninsula.
So this puts a lot in play in this dynamic from Beijing's perspec-
tive. They have to sort this out from their own perspective.
Mr. Bereuter. Thank you. Dr. Cronin.
Dr. Cronin. If North Korea is truly interested in becoming a
peaceful, cooperative power, then this is an opportunity in which
to act. It is unlikely given the historical record, however, that they
will act in a cooperative manner. But if they do, it is there.
For the Chinese, the simultaneous opportunity to retain a buffer
on their border is of strategic importance while at the same time
being able to leverage their role over North Korea with the South,
and their increasing Sino-Korean (South Korean) relationship, I
think, would be of great interest to Beijing.
That being said in an abstract sense, I do not think this propos-
al's timing is most auspicious in terms of Chinese participation
given the fact that Sino-American dialog is at something of a
standstill. Hopefully, a strategic framework like this though can be
erected over time. And I think this is the kind of vehicle that will
provide a regional or sub-regional architecture that can be used in
the next century.
And, finally, you asked, sir, about the Russian role, and Foreign
Minister Primakov has talked about an "all-azimuth" Russian for-
eign policy. They continue to keep an eye on any opportunities that
will allow Russia to have greater visibility in the growing Asian re-
gion. And their recent proposal in Pyongyang to create a multilat-
eral framework that they could be included in has not taken hold
anywhere. I think it would be even less likely to succeed than this
two-plus-two. So I am not confident that Russia has a very con-
structive role to play at this point.
Mr. Bereuter. Thank you.
Do you have a final comment. Dr. Przystup?
Dr. Przystup. Yes, just to pick up on that.
If Russia is to be included in this context, then that is going to
add another dimension to this as it starts to expand outward, and
the Japanese have a strong interest in what happens on the penin-
sula, and that has been historic. And so that leads to another com-
plication, as to how do you include first the Russians, and then per-
haps the Japanese.
And when you look at it from a Korean perspective, what the Ko-
reans have tried to do for 400 years basically, is to get the great
powers off the peninsula.
Mr. Bereuter. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen.
I would say to my colleagues that our light is not working here
and I will recognize, as I did myself, for each of you 6 or 7 minutes.
Then we should have time for a second round if you would like as
well.
So I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Berman.
Mr. Berman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for conduct-
ing this hearing.
23
Just to follow up on this last thought. If one or more of you could
just take me through the logic here.
The Chinese, assuming a reunified Korea, will not want U.S.
presence there. You all seemed, or some of you have said it. No one
has disagreed with that.
And we have a presence there now, at least recently focused on
North Korea, and it had turned on North Korea, what is, as op-
posed to the general interest and high interest we have in a for-
ward presence in the Pacific in this area, what would our specific
interest in having a presence in Korea be in a peacefully reunified
Korea?
Is that China containment? What is that?
Dr. Pollack.
Dr. PoLlv\CK. Congressman Berman, I am going to dissent from
what my colleagues said. To posit automatic Chinese opposition to
a continued America military presence in Korea begs a prior ques-
tion: what is the character and purpose of that presence, and that's
really the question that you have posed.
If, for example, in the aftermath of Korean unification, assuming
it comes soon, and notwithstanding North Korea's vulnerabilities,
that may itself still be a big assumption, one of the largest chal-
lenges will be to find a way to define a credible role for the United
States that does not precisely trigger a set of adverse responses
from the Chinese.
The Koreans, in fact, most of the time continue to indicate that
they would like the United States to stay over the longer run. That
may be in part because of concerns about Japan on Korea's part,
highlighting again one of the real elements of instability that I see
given the kinds of frictions that exist between Korea and Japan.
But the Chinese also may have to look carefully at the question of
whether it is better for their interests or not that the United States
remain militarily engaged in Northeast Asia.
If the assumption is that with Korean unification we no longer
have a role to play on the peninsula, this may as a consequence
trigger a set of Japanese responses that may find the Chinese in
a position with Japan that they do not find particularly congenial
to their interests.
Apart from all of this, I think our judgments about Chinese per-
spectives simply reflect the lousy state of our relations with the
PRC. Whether they are always going to be in that kind of a cir-
cumstance is debatable. But I would argue that what the United
States has to be doing, in conjunction with its allies and in conjunc-
tion with discussions with the Chinese, is to talk about what the
future shape of East Asia would look like. Wliat are the kinds of
security arrangements of which one could conceive? WTiat kinds of
capabilities are appropriate and permissible that do not pose a di-
rect and immediate risk to China?
Frankly, as we think about the future of a U.S. -Japan, U.S. -Ko-
rean relationship, if the logic is regional in terms of peacekeeping
capabilities, for example, and the like, some have argued that you
could see more of a U.S. naval presence in Korea over the longer
run. I am not arguing that we should just be looking for things to
do. We should ask whether these are things that really are going
to serve our long-term interests.
24
But I must say if the judgment of my colleague is right, we have
got a big problem on our hands because Secretary Perry, among
others, has already indicated very, very clearly that he expects us
to stay militarily on the peninsula. That may not address the exact
nature of that military presence, but, frankly, that is one of the
problems I have with the commitment to the 100,000 troop level.
It does not ask what is the composition of your forces, what do you
have them there for.
To presume that for the next 15 to 20 years, independent of any
changes we are going to see in the region, that our forces stay at
those levels, does not lend added credibility to our posture, frankly,
and undermines it.
Mr. Berman. You have covered a lot of ground here, and in a cer-
tain situation it is possible to think that every single major force
in Northeast Asia has a situation where they could want a contin-
ued American presence vis-a-vis the others; and that you might
have the scenario where you do not have problems with that pres-
ence except perhaps domestically.
Dr. Pollack. That is right. That is right.
Mr. Berman. And then just one last thing and then the others,
and then I will wait for another round.
Given the criticisms that come, I mean, I read about this whole
"Nye initiative," the assumption of the security presence is not the
big issue whether we should have the presence and questions of
what the force should look like over the next 10 or 20 years can
be dealt with, and just be dealt with, but it is a secondary issue
compared to the debate about whether our long-term U.S. interests,
and our focus on economic commercial questions argue for not al-
lowing these countries to take us for granted, beginning to move
to pull out, and there have been folks who have been writing that
way.
I will just throw that out to you. That, in other words, the Ad-
ministration is addressing the real central question by continuing
to, or at least since the initial Nye statement, focus on the impor-
tance of our continued presence there, and there is more credit for
that than the criticism for at least not publicly talking about what
the force might look like under a variety of different scenarios.
Dr. Pollack. Right. That is a fair comment. I would say, among
other reasons for just military planning purposes. Defense plan-
ners, quite apart from civilian decisionmakers in this or any ad-
ministration would argue that at a certain point levels of forces
cease to be operationally relevant and so forth. That can be, of
course, a very self-serving argument.
But I do think that the Administration in its own groping fashion
deserves some credit for articulating a commitment here over the
longer run.
I am just simply raising the issue if everyone seems to be per-
suaded and nods approvingly that North Korea's demise is only a
matter of time, we had better really be thinking now and acting
now and pursuing now very carefully discussions with our allies
and with the Chinese, and for that matter, the Russians, on our
concepts and ideas about longer run policy on the peninsula, and
in the region, and that, frankly, has not happened.
25
Mr. Bereuter. Your time has expired, but I think there are sev-
eral other gentlemen that want to respond to the question.
Dr. Przystup.
Dr. Przystup. I think the question you raise is really fundamen-
tal when you look at it from the strategic perspective. Korea has
been the focus of our strategic planning in the region. And when
we look at head post-unification, I think there are two questions.
One is, is the Congress going to support 37,000 troops on the pe-
ninsula? And second, will the unified government of Korea be able
to afford it in the way that we like to be accommodated in terms
of our military?
Those are real questions, and that has to be the starting — unifi-
cation really has to be the starting, Patrick raised that issue. We
have to start looking ahead what the future is going to look like.
And I think it is important that we maintain a security presence
in the region.
One hundred thousand, I agree with Jonathan, is a target num-
ber. I think it was put out, frankly, because we had taken some
real hits to our credibility over the first couple of years of this ad-
ministration. One hundred thousand was a clear definition of inter-
est, but it has real risks in a real changing environment, because
any time the number is moved down the question becomes then,
are we less committed to the region. Then you have to defend that.
So it is important that we start speaking now with our allies in
Japan, and in Korea as a starting point. What is it going to look
like?
A still life picture is the way I view it — if you want to conceptual-
ize it, is that you have the plate, the knife, and the bottle, and the
apple, and we want to maintain the essence of that picture. That
is our forward presence in the region. But we are going to change
the way it looks.
How are we going to change the way it looks? Does the bottle get
shorter? Does it get longer? Does the knife get shorter? Does the
fruit change? Those are the kinds of concepts that I think we have
to deal with when we start to look ahead.
Mr. Bereuter. Dr. Ott.
Dr. Ott. It is a good question, and it raises all sorts of issues,
so I am going to give a quick but rather scattered shot response
because it is effervescent with a lot of different things.
Very quickly, if you ask the South Korean military planners the
answer to your question, the answer is Japan, East Asia security.
We let you because of Japan, and post-unification we see your
forces as part of — as a platform as integrated in your regional
strategy. We become, we. South Koreans, become a participant in
America's East Asia security framework, strategy. Forces get
adapted for that role, more naval, more air, you know, so on. So
that is the South Korean answer.
Just a couple quick observations. A question that Dr. Pollack
raised about whether we should necessarily assume some things
here about Chinese attitudes. And I just will note that U.S. -China
relations has been a remarkable fever chart over the years. It has
been up and down, and up and down. And I have always thought
that was largely due to the foundations of the relationship going
26
back to the missionaries in China and a heavy emotional invest-
ment that Americans have made in China.
I am not sure the Chinese have quite reciprocated it, but we
have had on our side a very — there has been a very emotional con-
tent to the China relationship that has not been true of most other
countries. And the result is it has been like a bad love affair. We
were in and out of love, or angry. We kiss and make up, and then
are angry again. We are now deep into an angry phase.
So a fair warning that, you know, this fever chart has changed
several times in the past, and it could change again pretty quick.
And just one other sort of a slightly random observation but it
is triggered by this. Back to the Japan alliance, I mean, among the
many different thing that we have to start thinking through, and
I agree with my colleague, we have got to start thinking through
some fundamentals here, about what do we do post-unification. We
and the ROK's have got to start talking about this. The Japanese
alliance, as I think I tried to show it historically, has been sort of
remarkably reconstituted in terms of sort of a political content and
support.
It is not at all clear, though, that either side knows what we
would do in the event the balloon really goes up. I mean, the issue
began to get forced in the Taiwan straits, it is beginning to get
forced in Korea. What happens if the United States actually feels
it has to deploy forces and wants Japan's acquiescence and even ac-
tive support in a Taiwan crisis, a South China Sea crisis, a Korea
crisis.
I think it is fair to say, at least at the policy level, Japan does
not know what it would do. And that is a pretty big X factor, you
know.
Well, we have said, with regard to Taiwan, Joe Nye said it to the
Chinese, he said we do not know what we would do in the event
of a crisis, and that is why you should be careful, because we do
not know.
Mr. Bereuter. Dr. Cronin has a remark or a comment here, and
then we will go to the next questioner.
Dr. Cronin. Briefly, regarding China's attitude toward U.S. mili-
tary presence, Chinese military planners tell me that ultimately in
the long run they would like to assume the mantle of military pre-
eminence in the region, overtaking the United States. But that is
a very long-term, abstract goal.
In the short term, though, they profess to support U.S. presence,
provided that presence is seen as providing the regional stabilitv
that allows the Chinese economy to grow rather than as you al-
luded to, sir, being some force to contain China. Obviously, in those
circumstances no presence would be welcome by the Chinese Gov-
ernment.
In terms of U.S. interests, the rationale for retaining U.S. pres-
ence on the Korean Peninsula even after a settlement of the ten-
sions I think could be made in three arguments.
The first would be to retain regional stability. Here, among other
things, not to isolate the only other place where we do have bases
in the region, in Japan.
Second, is to increase or to enhance and preserve leverage in the
region. We are talking about a country, South Korea, after all.
27
whose GNP will overtake that of Russia, and we spend so much
time in this country talking about Russia and being worried about
Russia, but on any other set of charts in the next century, South
Korea is going to have an economy the size of Russia. And we need
to start to appreciate the role of this middle power.
And, third, is to share the burden of retaining prosperity and
peace and stability in the region with the wealthy democratic al-
lies. And there, if we convert the South Korean military from a
focus on the DMZ to maintaining regional stability, I think they
can play a constructive role as well.
For all three of those reasons there is some argument to be made
for retaining some, but not the same kind of, presence after peace
on the peninsula.
Thank you.
Mr. Bereuter. Thank you.
Congressman Kim, you are recognized.
Mr. Kim. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding. I do have half
a dozen questions, and I would like you to please give me a short
answer too.
Dr. Cronin, you mentioned that any usual U.S. presence on this
Korean Peninsula would have to be compact enough to avoid any
antagonizing China.
What is it? In other words, too large, then obviously China would
be upset. Too small, then they might be jeopardizing military
strength.
Is 100,000 about right? What is your opinion on this?
Dr. Cronin. If we were to increase over 100,000, clearly that
would be seen as antagonistic. The number, though, is probably
less important than the context in which that is occurring.
As I iust mentioned, the fact is that the force numbers are likely
to go down, not up, unless China somehow were the bully of the
region, and we were trying to contain China.
Mr. Kim. Let me tell you what I learned from that area. There
is a basic fear of China because you know that China has been
around 5,000 years. They will be around another 5,000 years. But
the United States can pack up and leave. So far away, the United
States is so far — 6,000 miles away. What happened in Vietnam.
They have a little underlying fear. The United States can, what-
ever changes happen, policies change, pack up and leave.
I want you to know there is a basic uneasy feeling. It is not a
mistrust, but policy can be changed. When you are talking about
compact enough to avoid antagonizing China, but then you are cre-
ating fear, oh, my God, fear of too many foreigners out there.
Maybe China will get upset. These are concerns I have.
We have to pull out. You mention on page 6, I believe, that both
Koreas remain eminently predictable. This is the first time I heard
that. Both Koreas can be predictable. Everybody else is saying that
there is no wav we know what they are going to do next step. And
you are the only one that says predictable.
What do you mean by that?
Dr. Pollack. Well, as I said, I differentiated between tactical un-
predictability, given that the North Koreans like to keep folks off
balance and their strategic orientation. But there really is logic to
their strategy. Their strategy is one of both keeping in business,
28
doing whatever they can to keep a very, very distant relationship
from South Korea, disturbing equilibrium in a variety of ways
where they believe they may have leverage.
One aspect of our policy that leaves me uncomfortable, frankly,
is that the North Koreans having been installed in business by the
Soviet Union, having been rescued by the Chinese, have now de-
cided that there is a new savior, and it is us.
We cannot let ourselves get into that position. But what I am
saying is that there is a method to their madness, if you will.
Whether it is on questions of the armistice, whether it is on ques-
tions on their ballistic missiles, all these issues about how they try
to leverage concerns about their weakness and vulnerability, and
possible damaging behavior and very
Mr. Kim. I understand.
Dr. Pollack. So I find them eminently predictable.
Mr. Kim. The North Korean troops were into the DMZ right be-
fore election time in South Korea. Nobody can explain that.
Dr. Pollack. Tactically, I cannot explain it. I cannot explain it.
Mr. Kim. You also mentioned that two-plus-two peace framework
in China and the United States serving as a guarantor, which I
agree. How about two-plus-three? Japan is also included. Do you
support the concept or are you
Dr. Pollack. I think under the circumstances with the historical
legacy of Japan's role and so forth, a way will have to be found to
involve powers such as Japan. If the two-plus-two framework
proves viable, I could imagine a circumstance or a meeting or a
conference, or what have you, in which Japan and Russia would be
also included as — I do not want to call them co-guarantors. They
would be participants in some because their interests are at stake.
But I would be wary that it is going to go very far given the lev-
els of animosity between Japan and Korea. But, frankly, that is
why I highlight it. This is not a healthy situation whatsoever for
the interests of the United States. And, frankly, it obviously is an
area that we are concerned about, but we do very, very little about.
There are a lot of reasons for it.
Ultimately, in the same way that the South and North have to
deal with one another, the ROK and Japan are going to have to
develop modalities of a more normal and stable relationship. But
there is a lot of tough sledding still to go there.
But my real concern is, if we talk about a regional concept of a
U.S. strategy after unification, how are we supposed to have a re-
gional concept with the Koreans and the Japanese looking upon
each other in different ways and in a very, very hostile fashion? It
makes no sense from the point of view of our role as a security
manager.
I think that is where we have a role to play. We can make it very
abundantly clear to both the Japanese and the Koreans it is not
acceptable to the interests of the United States to let either one of
them use their link to the United States to balance against the
other. That is a dumb idea for the United States.
Mr. Kim. It is my understanding that China actually declined
such a proposal to join this two-plus-two concept.
Dr. Pollack. That I do not know for a fact yet. I think it is too
early to say.
29
Mr. Kim. Well, that is the written statement that I have.
But the next question, in the interest of time I have got to move
fast.
Dr. Ott, you mentioned that China has become nervous about
North Korea disappearing or collapsing. That is the last com-
munism still existing on this earth. I understand contrary to your
opinion. I understand that when something happened to North
Korea, millions of refugees flowed in to China. That is going to be
a big headache to them.
At the same time the relationship is gone now prior to, I mean,
the relationship after the Kim Il-sung, and now North Korea be-
comes a total nuisance to them because there is a healthy trading
relationship between South Korea and China.
What makes you think that China will be supporting North
Korea, and they will become nervous to make sure that North
Korea does not collapse? I do not understand that concept.
Dr. Ott. I basically would agree with your observations. Let me
make just one quick response.
You raised a question about the North Koreans and why they did
the DMZ operation right up against the South Korean elections.
The explanation I like the best is that it just never occurred to
them to time their events according to an election. Elections are so
alien to their notion of what counts that the idea that they would
actually do something that was of vital interest to them in the
DMZ and time it to some crazy operation that was going on politi-
cally in the South never occurred to them. But, you know, that is
just a guess.
I guess the point I am trying to make, or the point I would make
with regard to your observation on how China views the North is
the North simply as a buffer, a Marxist-Leninist, nominally colle-
gia! buffer north of the 38th parallel is a positive as far as the Chi-
nese are concerned.
Does that mean they like everything that is going on in
Pyongyang right now? No, it is very clear they do not. The
Pyongyang regime has become a big nuisance to them. And to the
extent that the policy in Pyongyang seems to be leading that re-
gime over a cliff, and beginning to — ^you know, there are a lot of
defections now going, as I am sure you well know, going into China
out of the north. I mean, people are in desperate shape economi-
cally. The northern provinces in particular are very bad off.
So when the Chinese look at events now in North Korea, they
do not like it. But that does not mean in principle they would not
like to have a sort of stable, viable Marxist-Leninist regime if it
was in any way a going concern.
Mr. Kim. And, Dr. Przystup, I do have a couple questions for you.
Mr. Bereuter. I would like to take 5 minutes or 6 here.
Mr. Kim. Sure.
Mr. Bereuter. We had some discussion before about the
100,000-man troop level, and I think my judgment is that is really
more of a shorthand indication that we are going to be there, and
we are not going to cut back on our capability. But I think several
of you have accurately made the point that it really depends upon
the mixture, the nature of the deployment and the location of the
35-883 96-2
30
deployment. If we keep our capability there, that is the most im-
portant thing.
But now it is difficult for us to reduce numbers, even though we
do not reduce capabilities in light of that marker that has been
placed out there.
The former Prime Minister Hosokawa has — as you heard from
my opening statement, I repeated it — suggested perhaps the time
will soon come when marines ought to be pulled out of Japan alto-
gether, and relocate, perhaps to Guam, where we have excess ca-
pacity.
But would that not be seen as pulling them really out of the im-
mediate area, even though Guam is a long way out in the Pacific?
Would a location of ground troops in Australia, which could be
explored, meet part of the commitment, and still make it clear that
the United States is firmly committed to stability in Asia?
And what are your thoughts about what the Chinese really want
from us in terms of stability for the region?
One thing that has not been mentioned, of course, is the reason,
I would say, why we still have a garrison of troops in Japan 50
years after World War II, and that is to keep the Japanese, among
other things, from going nuclear, because I think no one, including
most Japanese people, want Japan to go nuclear.
Anybody want to try some responses to those points?
Dr. Przystup. Well, I think in terms of
Mr. Bereuter. Dr. Przystup.
Dr. Przystup [continuing]. Hosokawa statement, I have got the
full text of the address that he made, and I think it's quite interest-
ing.
Again, the point that he is making, which is quite striking from
a Japanese political leader, is that, again, that it is no exaggeration
to say that the importance of the U.S. bases in Japan have in-
creased in the aftermath of the cold war.
I think the discussion you talk about, the questions he raises are
more in the context of a political leader challenging the Japanese
Government to discuss with its own people why this is true, and
why the relationship with the United States is so important. That
is the context. He goes on and asks three or four series of ques-
tions.
He makes the point, "At least there has been no dialog with the
Japanese public about these issues." He said, 'There is a need to
engage the Japanese public in this debate." And the issues he
raises are host nation support, is this sustainable? If so, at what
levels? He talks about is it possible to reposition the forces in
Japan.
Then he says, "We should begin to debate soberly the obligations
of the self defense forces within the constraints of our Constitu-
tion."
So I think this is a very positive statement from a Japanese po-
litical leader saying it is time to talk about these issues opening,
in the context of understanding how important this relationship is
for Japan and how important the bases are in this post-cold war
environment. So I see it as a much more positive statement.
I do not see it as one that is trying to drive the public debate
away from the U.S. force presence in Japan, but he is asking the
31
question that we are asking here. What is the future going to look
like? How can we deal with it? And I think these are legitimate
questions.
Mr. Bereuter. Do you care to address the question of whether
at the highest levels in the People's Republic of China they want
to keep the United States there as a counter-weight to the
nuclearized
Dr. Przystup. Well, I think they certainly see a non-nuclear
Japan. That is certainly in their interest, and that, from a strategic
perspective, would go, I think, unchallenged.
The real question is what is the nature of the U.S. relationship
with China: what is the context, what is the environment in terms
of the troop level, the number, the nature of our deployments in
Asia, and that is driven by political.
Mr. Bereuter. Is the Japan/PRC/U.S. three-way relationship the
most important relationship in the world for the next 20 years?
Dr. Przystui'. I do not quite see it triangular. I think these are
a series of really bilateral relationships, because I do not think that
China and Japan exert the leverage on us that would be necessary
to make it a truly triangular relationship.
Mr. Bereuter. So a United States to China and United States
to Japan relationship versus that triangular?
Dr. Przystup. And then China, too.
Mr. Bereuter. Yes, I think that is a good distinction.
Dr. Przystup. But I would say that, you know, from a Japanese
perspective their strategic options, I think, are quite limited over
an extended — just given China's position in the region. They can
try on our neutrality, and they have tried that, and that was a pop-
ular phrase in the late seventies and eighties, only directional di-
plomacy and unarmed neutrality, and that did not go very far. And
I do not think the Chinese are going to be prepared to tolerate a
nuclear Japan.
I think the choices basically are between where they are going
to go in an Asia that is going to be driven by two major powers,
China and the United States.
Mr. Bereuter. I will call on Dr. Pollard — excuse me.
Dr. Pollack. Pollack.
Mr. Bereuter. Pollack. Pollard is someone else, yes.
Dr. Pollack. I can assure you, sir, you are not the first person
to make that mistake.
Mr. Bereuter. I was a member of the Intelligence Committee,
so I do remember that name as well.
Dr. Poli^ck. I think that one needs to bear in mind that part
of Chinese strategy right now is to have an insurance policy
against the unlikely prospect that we could indeed proceed to some
kind of a containment strategy. And I do not see evidence that we
are doing this both because, on the one hand, the Chinese have not
arrived militarily at a point that we deem them such a threat to
peace and stability in the region, notwithstanding their recent mili-
tary exercises.
And, of course, it is too late in the sense that China has already
economically and politically integrated with so many of its neigh-
bors. Indeed, I was in both Singapore and in Japan at the time of
the Chinese exercises, and I was very struck in Singapore that we
32
were getting remarkably little support from our friends in South-
east Asia for our felt concerns about Chinese behavior.
We should remind ourselves that the Chinese are clever and re-
sourceful about positioning themselves politically and otherwise,
that it will make it very difficult for us to proceed without consider-
ing Chinese interests.
So when the Chinese come in full voice about warning the United
States that it is not a good idea to do too much with Japan mili-
tarily, they are trying to constrain the level at which that relation-
ship develops because it could indeed afford the United States some
options if push comes to shove.
We have a similar problem, of course, with Korea. There the Chi-
nese do not at the present time raise in a significant way concerns
about our longer-term presence because they know why we are
there now. But that issue also has to be faced.
The other aspect that I would raise is that I am not at all con-
vinced that the Chinese are all speaking with one voice on these
questions. China is an increasingly contentious place. For us to de-
termine where the center of gravity lies strategically and politically
in China is increasingly difficult, especially at times when the Chi-
nese are in full voice about all the nasty things the United States
is doing to them.
So this is one of the problems we have in discerning credibly the
range of opinion within Chinese leadership; in particular, the mili-
tary leadership. I believe it is possible to sustain a dialog there,
and we had better do it, and it is going to require, frankly, the Ad-
ministration to take some political heat. But I just cannot imagine
involving a stable, durable, peaceful security order in East Asia
over the longer run if we do not find a way to deal credibly, hon-
estly, and above board with the Chinese and vice-versa.
Mr. Bereuter. Dr. Pollack, thank you.
Mr. Kim. Mr. Chairman, I have to attend a meeting.
Mr. Bereuter. All right.
Mr. Kim. Can I ask my questions?
Mr. Bereuter. We will give Dr. Ott a chance to respond, and
then I certainly plan to return to the
Dr. Ott. Two very quick observations. You have got a lot of balls
in play here, and one of them you mentioned was Australia. And
I want to be careful when I say this because I don't want to make
any headlines in Canberra or somewhere. But one of the things —
Australia is going to be increasingly interesting, and it already is,
because, as you know, the Australians have really had a full corps
press on for the last 2 or 3 years to reorient their security policy,
foreign policy toward Asia, and particularly toward Southeast Asia,
and the recent agreement with Indonesia was a kind of important
marker in that process.
You are now beginning for the first time, at least that I have
heard it, to get voices kind of at the working level within the U.S.
military who work the Southeast Asia beat, who are beginning to
look upon — beginning to feel that the AustralianAJ.S. relationship
is taking on a competitive tone in Asia that was not there before.
I mean, this has been an extremely close and collaborative relation-
ship. And I am not sure I want to take that anywhere but I
Mr. Bereuter. This is in the U.S. military. Dr. Ott?
33
Dr. Ott. Yes, that is right.
But I think it is interesting, and it reflects that this is a dynamic
relationship. So when we talk about the Australians hosting forces
and so on, that environment may be a moving target.
The other quick observation with regard to nuclear Japan, I sug-
gest to you that if the nuclear issue arises, it does not arise in
Japan. It arises in Korea.
I had a conversation with a Korean security analyst recently, a
couple days ago, who made an explicit reference to Korea's desire
under a unification scenario to acquire nuclear weapons, and that
there was a certain context in which that was put. I called atten-
tion to the comment, and the response I got was, "Well, all security
analysts in South Korea believe that. They just do not want to say
it." So I just make that as an observation.
Mr. Bereuter. Thank you. I am not sure I had heard about the
attitude, or expressed attitude behind the scenes on competition be-
tween the miliary.
Dr. Ott. I think it is very preliminary, and this is by no means
unanimous or anything of the sort, and I do not want to overplay
it, but it is interesting.
Mr. Bereuter. In my judgment, the Australians and Indo-
nesians are playing a very constructive role in the region.
The gentleman from California.
Mr. Kim. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding back. I ap-
preciate that.
I understand that the relationship between China and the Unit-
ed States has been pretty low right now, and it is my understand-
ing the Japanese share of the cost of U.S. forces in Japan right now
is about 75 percent, and it may reach to 80 percent by the end of
this decade. I understand some countries do not pay anything.
This non-uniform policy may be the reason why we are creating
such animosity. Why is the cost sharing so high in Japan compared
to other nations? Anybody can answer that.
Dr. Pollack. That has to do, sir, with the character of Japan's
contribution since the argument has been Japanese forces can only
be there to defend their own territory. They cannot play a role be-
yond their territory or beyond what we delimit as their sea and air
space.
And unlike the Europeans who are very much embedded in a col-
lective security arrangement, the fact that Japan stands out being
very, very different, that the obligations are not mutual, we have
an obligation to come to Japan's defense, Japan does not have an
obligation to come to ours, puts a very different spin on this.
More than that, the extraordinary costs of being in Japan are a
factor.
But this is where I am left very uneasy. If people say, well, look,
Japan ponies up all this money, and, indeed, I know the Adminis-
tration will use this as an illustration, $5— -$6 billion a year and
so forth, money is nice, I suppose, but there is more than money
that is at stake in the alliance. If that is the only basis or the pri-
mary basis on which we proceed ahead with the Japanese, there
are just going to be some inherent weaknesses and liabilities in
this kind of a relationship. That is the unhealthy part, it seems to
me, because we do not really broach the much more contentious
34
and loaded questions about Japan's long-term future, its relations
with its neighbors and so forth and so on. That is the tough stuff
that we are going to really have to deal with, I think, in the years
to come.
Mr. Kim. Groing back to this two-plus-two people. If North Korea
or if China refuse to participate, what do we do then?
Dr. Pollack. In my estimation, what we do is that there are lim-
its beyond which we should not chase after our North Korean
friends; that we prudently maintain the kinds of forces we deploy
in Korea. We need to deal with a range of scenarios on the penin-
sula, particularly the so-called non-conical scenarios given the kind
of weakened state that North Korea is in.
If one seriously believes that there is a real possibility of this re-
gime going belly up, it is going to be very, very unpleasant. It is
going to be very, very messy, and we better be dealing verv, verv
closely, not only with the ROK but also, if need be, privately with
the Chinese to address those kinds of questions.
So for all the talk about the inevitability of reunification and
whether hard landing, soft landing, what have you, I mean, fun-
damentally speaking this is going to be a very, very unpleasant
process. How we get from here to there is critical, and we have got
to address it.
Dr. Przystup. I just would add that over the last decades our
strategy toward the North have been to maintain deterrence, and
to make clear to the North that we will not accept any wedge-driv-
ing tactics to come between ourselves and our allies in the South;
and that that has to be our baseline position, and continue to be
that position.
Mr. Kim. That brings me to the last question, Mr. Chairman. The
last question I have is what bothers me is all this time we have
been taking sort of low key response to North Korea threat. And,
for example, all this violation of DMZ, armistice agreement and
violate it, and we did not say anything.
The period of threat in the past, again, the United States did not
do anything, no response whatsoever. Why do we take such a tough
position? All this, we have given them money. $2 million behind
the back of South Korea. Very low key. They did not say anything.
We should really speak up and let the North Korean know that we
are friends of South Korea, but we did not say a word, very low
key. Certainly now combats, well, two-plus-two is declined, then we
are going to take a strong position.
Can you explain that to me? Why we have such an inconsistent
policy shift from low key to high key?
Dr. Pollack. I think that the preeminent reason and fundamen-
tal driving concern of U.S. policy vis-a-vis North Korea is to keep
this nuclear program on ice. And we have been prepared to go to
ample lengths in order to do so.
Now, that does not necessarily mean it is therefore a conflict of
interest with those of the ROK, but it does mean that those felt
concerns about the implications of the North Koreans completing
much larger reactors that are plutonium-producing reactors gives
them leverage for better or for worse, and we are prepared to pay
a price. It may be more a political price, frankly, than an economic
price, to maintain them — to see this program stopped in its tracks.
35
That said, I think that the political costs over time could prove sig-
nificant, and do create, I think, potentially sources of tension with
our allies.
But I must say, again, the logic of the KEDO process is such that
ultimately if it proceeds, and that is, of course, a big if, it would
find a very, very significant ROK presence in the North. And I
have to believe that is in our joint interest. That is to say with our
South Korean allies. But it is a long way from here to there. It is
a very tough issue to deal with, and I think we need to send clear
signals about do's and don'ts, lest we find ourselves on some kind
of an ongoing process from which there is really no escape without
a lot of payout.
But, finally, I just think that the assumption in many, many cir-
cles is that this regime is on borrowed time. And the presumption
would be to go along with us now to buy a certain measure of sta-
bility, and wait them out. Now, whether that is a realistic or appro-
priate judgment, we could presumably talk about. But I think that
is what drives a lot of our policy.
Mr. Kim. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bereuter. Mr. Kim, Dr. Ott would like to respond.
Dr. Ott, would you like to
Mr. Kim. Oh, I am sorry. I missed you. Please.
Dr. Ott. Ten seconds worth, Congressman, and I have had this
conversation before.
The nuclear agreement has obviously been a very controversial
one, and the piece by G. G. Gyer just in the last few days is very
critical of it. For whatever it is worth, and I, like Patrick Cronin,
speak only for myself. I do not speak for any institution. I am one
of those who believes that agreement was a remarkable achieve-
ment, that we have a core interest in putting a cap on that pro-
gram. It was a tough negotiation. It was by no means guaranteed
that we would be able to do that. We have done it. We have observ-
ers on the ground to make sure that it is implemented. And just
my personal view is that that is an achievement, a diplomatic
achievement of the first order.
Mr. Bereuter. Congressman Kim, I issued a press statement on
Thursday in response to inquiries of my district about the Adminis-
tration's policy with respect to the Koreas. I said that I thought the
message is very mixed that the Administration has sent.
The President first visited, then made very strong statements
about stopping the nuclear program in its tracks, and then, of
course, we have seen him proceed with sending food aid really
without any substantial support, if at all, from the Hill, without
really checking whether or not it was going to be diverted.
I think that these are sending the wrong signals. So that is just
what I have done on the subject.
I yield to the gentleman from California. He will be able to con-
clude the questions here, I think, for the hearing today.
Mr. Berman. Just on this last point, is there a debate that that
nuclear program has been stopped in its tracks, frozen in its
tracks? I mean, is there a belief that we do not know, or at least
it has not reached me, that something is going on which violates
the commitments regarding their nuclear program?
36
Dr. Pollack. The obligation was to cease the production of any
additional plutonium, to reload the reactor, for example, or to pro-
ceed further to complete the construction of the two much larger
reactors.
Mr. Berman. Right.
Dr. Pollack. The agreement, as I understand it does not cover
whatever they may be doing with whatever plutonium they may
have.
Mr. Berman. With respect to the commitments that were made,
I guess
Dr. Pollack. Right.
Mr. Berman [continuing], is there any-
Dr. Pollack. No, they have honored them to the letter by all ac-
counts.
Mr. Bereuter. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Berman. Sure.
Mr. Bereuter. Perhaps I precipitated that. What I heard the
President say earlier was that we would not tolerate nuclear weap-
ons.
Dr. Pollack. Right.
Mr. Bereuter. And their use, and we would even go to war, if
necessary, if in fact they continue to produce them, they maintain
them and they use them, and "use" them is an important part.
And, of course, they have not used them.
Dr. Pollack. The exquisite tension, it seems to me, of the agree-
ment that, again, as even its proponents. Ambassador Galucci
being prime among them, would acknowledge that even assuming
everything works according to plan, that it will be
Mr. Bereuter. You have still got some
Dr. Pollack. It will be over 10 years, over 10 years before we
have a full accounting of the history of their program.
Mr. Bereuter. Right.
Mr. Berman. Second, is there anyone on the panel that thinks
that the money we have given is the food aid? I am not sure what
my colleague, Mr. Kim, was talking about. He said behind the
backs of the Republic of Korea. What has been behind their back?
Dr. Pollack. I do not think we have done anything at all behind
the back of the ROK The ROK may not like it because in fact the
ROK does not speak with one voice on this issue of what they do
with their North Korea problem.
Dr. Przystup. I think what happened is the announcement of the
terms of the South Korea's reaction to the food aid issue.
Mr. Berman. So it is the food aid. It is not the
Dr. Przystup. Well, I do not know. He did mention food aid, I
believe. The way it was announced, the Assistant Secretary an-
nounced the fact that we were moving ahead with the food aid
package. But the day before we were supposed to have consulta-
tions with the government of the Republic of Korea in Hawaii just
about that subject. So I think there was a sense that they felt they
may have been blind-sighted and preempted by that rather than
been consulted about that decision.
Mr. Berman. But that gets to the broad point. This is the ques-
tion, I guess, I really wanted to ask. Move away from the sort of
37
specifics about these fascinating issues. We can talk about any of
them for hours.
Dr. Cronin, you wrote, "Unless we reorganize our government in-
stitutions to reflect the world's shifting balance of power, unless we
create a new centralized system for the adjudication of interagency
policymaking, unless we make it easier to conduct government
business in East Asia, unless we reduce the number of laws that
tie policymakers' hands in dealing with major powers like China
and Japan," I would be interested in knowing about that specifi-
cally since I guess we do have the theoretical ability to undo them
if they should be undone. Then it does not matter how skillful our
appointed — you are calling for — now, is this — I mean, there has
been criticism of the Administration on the notion that, particu-
larly vis-a-vis China, you hear one emphasis from the State De-
partment, and another emphasis from the Commerce Department,
and another emphasis from the Trade Representatives office, and
maybe a fourth from the Arms Control Agency.
Is this what you are referring to, or are you talking about some-
thing structural, or are you just talking about getting our act to-
gether?
Dr. Cronin. Congressman Berman, I am talking here specifically
about a structural problem. That regardless of whether you like
Secretary Lord or not, regardless of whether you like Secretary
Perry, or other particular individuals, I think that any candidate
in that position is going to have difficulty doing something more
than reacting to the rape of an Okinawan school girl, or doing more
than reacting and trying to reduce a problem to a nuclear issue,
when in fact the Korean Peninsula is much more than that.
We have to be taking positive steps toward shaping the environ-
ment now. We basically, unfortunately, have squandered the last
few years — the nineties, since the end of the cold war. We were not
able to make the transition from cold war competition with one ide-
ological superpower, the Soviet Union, to the multi-polar world in
which Asia counted more. And, therefore, our bureaucracy is still
top-loaded for Europe and Russia.
Our governmental officials cannot make policy because they are
hamstrung by legislation that prevents it. I mean, ask the French
about the Airbus and what is happening with their contracts with
China. I am not sure that the loss of U.S. aircraft sales to China
is benefiting U.S. interests in the region that matters the most in
this next century.
We need a fundamental top-down reorganization of how we do
business so that Asia can be accorded at least a parallel platform
with our European policy.
I do not want to reject Europe. I studied at Oxford. I love the
Europeans. I have European ancestors. But Asia is the cockpit that
is driving the international system. That is, an ascendant China,
which we do not know whether it is going to be a constructive
power or not. We know it is going to be
Mr. Berman. How would you do it? I mean, I agree.
Dr. Cronin. How would we do it?
Mr. Berman. We had a foreign service and a foreign policy appa-
ratus, and perhaps a military apparatus that was mostly focused
38
on NATO, Western Europe, the cold war and the Soviet Union.
How do you do it?
Dr. Cronen. Well, that is a very long story, sir. But I would begin
by saying take a group of some of the best people representing dif-
ferent points of view, and start having regular meetings about how
we recraft an unfettered foreign policy that accurately reflects the
influence that Asia is gaining, so that we are not hamstrung.
We cannot start from where we were with a cold war structure
and try to fix it, like the old garrison forces in Okinawa. We have
to start with a clean slate, to some extent. We really need a bot-
tom-up review of our overall policy. And the Asia and Pacific Sub-
committee cannot handle that alone because it has to be accorded
with our other national priorities. We have to somehow show that
Asia now matters more in the next century, and in the very long
term. I am talking about a strategic game plan for the United
States for the next 20 years, to transform us into the 21st century
power that I would like to see us remain.
Mr. Berman. Well, I think I have opened up something that is
probably unfair to open up in the waning minutes of this nearing.
But it would be interesting, and perhaps some of the other things
I have here that you have written, elaborate on this, because you
mentioned it in your testimony, but it is not really developed. I
would be curious to know about it.
Dr. Przystup. I would just add that, you know, the starting
point, if we recognize that — define the challenge and the interest
we have in Asia, the starting point really is that China's emergence
is going to define the structure of the international system for the
first quarter of the next century. You look at the country and its
size, its population, its resources, economic dynamism, and its mili-
tary potential, that alone should get your attention, and that alone
should draw our interest, because
Mr. Berman. I will try to cut this off although it is very interest-
ing.
Two things I would like to say. One is, one way or another there
are different criticisms of Administration foreign policy with re-
spect to Asia, but there was also a sense of praise for specific
things, some of which started maybe a year ago, some of which oc-
curred yesterday, and I am wondering — so just to put this in a per-
spective. I mean, even conceding some of the earlier problems,
things may be turning around. There may be some hope.
And I am wondering if this two-plus-two arrangement is a bit of
a — if one of the benefits of dealing with China that was not men-
tioned by any of you is dealing with this question of the great
power that people say we should understand China is, and by get-
ting them into this, inviting them in or hoping to go into this proc-
ess with them, sort of giving them a status, it is not the general
review you want in the broad policy, but it is taking one important
issue now and all of a sudden starting to treat them and deal with
them a little bit differently.
I am wondering if that is not a potential benefit, apart from the
other reasons given for this two-plus-two formulation.
Dr. Przystup. As far as things turning around, I do not think
they turn that quickly, and I think the last three-plus years have
been very difficult in terms of our relationship with
39
Mr. Berman. Five-plus years?
Dr. Przystup. Pardon?
Mr. Herman. Five-plus years?
Dr. Przystup. Five-plus years. I said three.
Mr. Berman. Well, since Tiananmen Square we have had some
real problems with China.
Dr. Przystup. OK. You know, it is not going to turn around on
a dime, and it cannot, and it really requires, you know, follow
through. You just cannot go out to the region and make a state-
ment, make a proposal, and then let things slide.
Mr. Berman. I agree.
Dr. Przystup. And I think part of that is going to be defined
here in the Congress as we deal with MFN.
Mr. Bereuter. Dr. Ott.
Dr. Ott. Just very quickly, just a couple of for instances. I mean,
I think that the proposition is correct; that this kind of engagement
with China on real issues, Chinese at the table participating is an
important message to send.
A couple of other examples, MTCR, I mean. Missile Technology
Control Regime, that is a bone that is stuck in the Chinese throat
for a long time. It would seem to me worth at least thinking about
sitting down with the Chinese and saying, OK, you were not at the
table, you resent it, you have had these rules sort of imposed on
you. OK, let us sort of reopen the MTCR specifically with you at
the table, and let us — now, there is potential downside to that and
I am not a specialist on the missile control issue. But that kind of
engagement.
The other one is the WTO. I think you are going to hear increas-
ing voices saying it is only going to be wise to hold the line so long
on WTO. There is going to come a point here the cost and gains
ratio is going to shift against us, and we better start beginning to
think seriously about allowing the Chinese in on WTO in response
to some sort of proper deal with them, but keeping them outside
is a problem.
Mr. Berman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bereuter. Thank you, Mr. Berman. I think you are right
about the advantages of engagement to the Chinese on something
like two-plus-two.
Mr. Berman and I will gather over coffee and try to develop a
comprehensive concerted U.S. policy for Asia, and may call upon
you for some advice.
Thank you very much quite seriously for the excellent written
testimony and for your responses to our questions. I think it has
been very helpful to the panel, and I am glad that you had the
spotlight at our hearing today.
Thank you very much for coming.
[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
SECURITY IN NORTHEAST ASIA
Opening Remarks
April 17, 1996
Rep. Howard L. Herman
Ranking Member, Asia and Pacific Subcommittee
I commend Chairman Bereuter on the timeliness of
holding this hearing during President Clinton's
triumphant visit to Asia.
From all reports, the trip has been a great
success, going far to re-establish the importance of our
security relations with our Asian allies.
The President's proposal of a Four Party Peace
Proposal for the Korean Peninsula is an important new
Administration initiative.
Unfortunately, neither North Korea nor China
have responded affirmatively. However, I hope they will
reassess their positions. Relations with North Korea
over implementation of the Agreed Framework and the
establishment of liaison offices are already complicated
enough without adding to it a North Korean reluctance to
arrive at a permanent peace arrangement .
The resolution of basing issues on Okinawa is a
notable accomplishment, as is the new cooperative
arrangement with Japan's Self Defense Forces. Both are
major steps forward in the Clinton Administration efforts
to renew our security relationship with Japan.
I know some of my colleagues will disparage these
initiatives. American relations with Asia have been
difficult but they were equally troublesome during the
Bush Administration.
It is easy to forget the contentious character of
1
(41)
42
our bilateral relations with Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia,
the Philippines, China, and Japan under President Bush.
Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir had a
veritable war of words with Secretary Baker over the
Prime Minister's proposals for an East Asian economic
union that excluded the U.S..
In Cambodia the Bush Administration
contemplated a covert action program to overthrow the
government led by Hun Sen - a leader the US later ended
up recognizing as a result of the Paris Peace Accords.
In the Philippines, the historic pillar of our
security arrangements in Asia, we were forced to abandon
our bases .
On the Korean Peninsula, it was under the Bush
Administration that the strategy leading to the Agreed
Framework was first developed. Indeed, I think one of
today' s witnesses - Jim Przytrup from the Heritage
Foundation - was an architect of that design.
Anti- Japanese feeling was high over the FSX jet
fighter deal . So much so that some observers wondered if
the Japanese -American security alliance would ever
recover. I remember Senator D'Amato on the Senate floor
evoking images of Pearl Harbor as he spoke of the threat
posed to America by the fighter plane deal.
And, of course, reverberations from the
massacre in Tiananmen Square and the Scowcroft-
Eagleburger secret mission to Beijing are still being
felt in U.S. -Chinese relations.
What all these incidents indicate is that
difficulties in our relations with Asia are becoming more
the norm in part because of the economic and political
modernization of Asia.
No longer can America expect to speak and then have
others follow. Asia's economic wealth and growing
democratization mean that individual Asian nation's
interests may differ from that of the U.S. We must learn
43
to lead - which is different from issuing orders.
Consultation and cooperation are going to have to
be the watchwords of our future policy towards Asia.
Consultation and cooperation were the hallmarks of
President Clinton's mission to Asia. On that basis we
can look forward to the Administration's efforts to
rejuvenate our Asia policy.
I look forward to the views of today's expert
witnesses and again I commend Mr. Bereuter for his
thoughtful consideration of these issues.
44
STATEMENT BY REPRESENTATIVE JAY KIM (CA)
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
HEARING ON SECURITY iN NORTHEAST ASIA
APRIL 17, 1996
MR. KIM. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this very important and timely hearing. The
recent increase in tensions throughout Northeast Asia makes it imperative that this
Subcommittee review and examine all of the issues that threaten U.S. security interests.
First, let me express my deep concern regarding the increased tensions between North
and South Korea. Recent statements by high-level North Korean officials have raised
serious questions of security on the Korean Peninsula and the future of the Armistice
Agreement. Vice Marshal Kim's announcement that "self-defense" measures were to be
taken and that North Korea would "no longer abide by its responsibilities under the
Armistice Agreement" are just the sort of comments that led to misunderstandings and
possible military confrontations.
However, actions speak louder than words. The recent incursion of 180 to 300 North
Korean troops into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) are provocative. This blatant breach of
compliance with the Armistice Agreement further enhances my concerns over this
Administration's policies with respect to North Korea. I was pleased, however, to hear
President Clinton and President Kim reaffinn that the fundamental principle of establishing
a stable, permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula is the task of the Korean people. In
particular, I strongly support the notion that North and South Korea should take the lead
in a renewed search for a permanent peace agreement. And, I laud the "four-party
meeting" proposal. The involvement of the United States and China will facilitate the
dialogue for peace between the Koreas. In fact, this is a concept that I proposed to the
Assistant Secretary of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Mr. Winston Lord, when he appeared
before this very Subcommittee three weeks ago.
I believe that this approach will force the North Koreans to abide by their statements in
support of a permanent peace agreement. This plan will put the ball in North Korea's court.
In the meantime, I call upon this Administration to refuse further direct negotiations with
North Korea until they begin an honest and open exchange with South Korea.
As for the situation in Okinawa, I can only extend my heartfelt sympathy to the young child
and her family whose lives were so horrible changed by the deplorable actions of three
U.S. military personnel. However, I believe a strong U.S. military presence in Japan, and
throughout Southeast Asia, is imperative to ensure stability in the region. It is unfortunate,
therefore, that the actions of three men have jeopardized our relationship with a close ally
and have tarnished the image of all American military personnel overseas. In that regard,
I hope that this hearing closely examines the repercussions this incident will have on the
U.S. presence throughout Asia.
Again, thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this most important hearing.
45
OEPARTMENr OF OEFTNSe
NATIONAL DCFENrC UHWCMTTV
WABHtNOTOM, O.C. 2011 i
(n-rmKTio** o»;
PATRICK M. CRONIN
Btogr&phicai Summary
?f ^ : S™.'! "'^ ^"'°^ Research Professor « the Instrtute for National Strataoic
,-^^^il the Nal.onal Defense University in Washington. D.C. As the Instttirtes Asian
w^ n.^'' ^'oP™"'" conducts msearch for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. PacWc Command. He is also Executive Edrtor of the
Sf the^ JCS*' """"^"^ ^""'^* '^"'"^ '^^^ Qua/terty, which is pubUshed for the Chairman
After earning a doctorate In Internationa) Relations at Oxford University In England Dr
,ooc\" ^'^^5»fie Congressional Research Sen/Ice of the Ubrary of Congress (1984-
Ha io n^'?Mcc ^'1!^°'/]'' ^"^^t ^^ ^. ^^"'°' ^"^"^^ ^ '^« Center for Naval Ana^ses
^ZK^ r*f ^ 'rJ^^°- ^^« ^ ^^ f^eld teaching posts at the University of Virginia and
the School for Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University He
continues to hold his commission as an intelligence officer In the U.S. Naval Reserve and
he is Associate Editor of the Joumal. Strategic Review.
Dr^Cronln has published and lectured widely In Asia and the United States His co-
f^Z2 r'°,1'^'^- ^^'^^"'"a ^« as. -Japan Alliance, has been referred to as a
template for the present reaffirmation of the bilateral aWance. He Is also the author of a
^currty Relationships ar>d Overseas Presence" in Sfrafe^fc /^ssessmenf r996 and the
co-author of "The Realistic Engagement of China" in the Winter 1996 Issue of The
^^shmgton Ouanerty. Hnalty, he Is the co-author and editor of two forthcoming books
S/7rff,n^ fletetoons Among the WortdS Major Powers and 2015: Power and Progress In thi
cany 21st Century.
/4>ril f89e
EOUCATINQ SmATEQiC LEADERS FOB TODAY AND TOMORROW
46
TESTIMONY
OF
DR. PATRICK M. C RON IN
SENIOR RESEARCH PROFESSOR,
THE INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES,
THE NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY
PREPARED FOR A HEARING OF
THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC,
THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APRIL 17, 1996 THE RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
47
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this opportunity to testify before the
House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. These proceedings
coincide with important diplomatic events in Northeast Asia, which I hope to place in
context with seven broad observations Before beginning, however, I must mention that
I speak today as an individual observer of U.S. Asian security policy. My comments are
my own and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Defense University
or the Department of Defense.
As President Clinton concludes his Asian summitry, he and his Defense
Department team can point to a number of positive and concrete achievements in United
States security policy. Thanks to the work of officials like Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense Kurt Campbell, the United States has revitalized its keystone security relationship
with Japan. Another achievement is the reaffirmation of U.S. solidarity with the Republic
of Korea in her search for an enduring solution to antagonisms on the peninsula. These
developments signal a potential watershed in our security relationships with Japan and,
to a lesser extent, South Korea. If we have not yet turned the corner, at least we have
begun walking down the block toward redefining our East Asian alliances away from
narrow, threat-based deterrents toward opportunity-based bulwarks of regional stability.
In short, U.S. Asian security policy has finally entered the post-Cold War world.
1. Recognizing Northeast Asia as tlie Locus of 21st Century Power
This is a commendable development, because my first point is that Northeast Asia
will be the wellsphng of international security in the twenty-first century. Whether the
international system is more or less stable, whether the American people are more or less
prosperous, and whether the United States remains more or less a great power is likely
to be determined over the next half century in this region of the world. The locus of
economic, political, technological, and military power is continuing to shift from the Atlantic
to the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Consequently, future U.S. administrations will have no
choice but to operate in a world in which Asian prerogatives are, at a minimum, on a par
with European prerogatives.
2. Crafting a U.S. Strategy That Relates Ends to Means
Unfortunately, neither Republican nor Democratic administrations have fashioned
a coherent strategy for dealing with this next phase in American security. Thus, my
second observation is that the United States Government needs to reexamine its national
security strategy vis-a-vis the Asian-Pacific region. What kind of region does American
want to see develop in two decades' time, and what will be the role of an ascendant
China, a more activist Japan, and a united Korea? If the United States is to maximize
its chances of retaining influence in East Asia in the next century, then it is essential that
such a review be strictly bipartisan, tapping our best people in both the Executive and
Legislative branches of government. This Subcommittee could play a pivotal role in such
a review. By agreeing on our fundamental principles and objectives in advance, and
relating those objectives to realistic means, U.S. officials can go beyond reactive and
reductionist policies and get on with leading the international system into the 21st century.
48
3. Reorganizing our Policy Apparatuses for a World of Asian Powers
In the realm of defense planning, much effort is consumed these days with
analyzing a potential revolution in military affairs. This is indeed an important subject, but
by focusing on technology and information we may be neglecting the unfolding political
revolution as Asia rises on the world stage. Yet there has been no corresponding
reorganization of our bureaucracy, no heightened program for educating our children, and
no simplification of the panoply of well-meaning but ultimately self-defeating laws
hampering creative and effective national security policy. Hence, my third point is that
we need to marry up the energies of the Republican revolution with the Vice President's
reinvention of government, in order to optimize our ability to make rational national
security policy for this explosive region of the world. The current system succeeded in
winning the Cold War against the now-defunct Soviet empire, but it is not the right system
to remain competitive in the next century's world of great Asian powers. Unless we
reorganize our governmental institutions to reflect the world's shifting balance of power;
unless we create a new centralized system for the adjudication of interagency
policymaking; unless we make it easier to conduct governmental business in East Asia;
unless we reduce the number of laws that tie policymakers' hands in dealing with major
powers like China and Japan; unless we do all of these things, then it does not matter
how skillful our political appointees are, for the fruits of their labor will be inadequate.
4. Forging a U.S.-Japan Alliance Based on Reciprocity
Fourth, we must seize the momentum In U.S.-Japan relations to forge a lasting
transformation of the security relationship into a true alliance, one based on a level of
reciprocity commensurate with each country's overall national strength. The roots of the
U.S.-Japan Secuhty Dialogue, which has just culminated in the release of a Joint Security
Declaration, are manifold. They include growing public doubts about the utility of a
security relationship after the breakup of the Soviet Union, increased frictions over trade,
as well as fears of a potential crisis of expectations in the event of a regional conflict.
Whatever the genesis, the United States and Japan have before them a landmark
opportunity to forge a new partnership that is at once more equal, more global, and more
comprehensive, than has heretofore been the case. For instance, through a concerted
review of Japan's two-decade-old Defense Guidelines, the United States may be able to
raise the collective Japanese consciousness as to Japan's obligations to international
security. Our goal should be steady progress toward even more emphasis on Article 6
of the Security Treaty-"regional security"-instead of overriding concentration on Article
5-"the (almost exclusive) defense of Japan." We should seek greater Japanese
contributions to American operations in and through East Asia and the Pacific, without
undermining the stability provided by Japan's self-constrained security policies.
Concomitant with this official review of defense guidelines, we should be sure to expand
debate between our two countnes. One of the silver linings on the dark cloud of the
Okinawa incident last year has been the internalization of the security debate in Japan.
It's time to enhance our parliamentary exchanges in order to ensure that our security
debate has the widest possible public support and understanding. In sum, we need to
49
create sets of relationships, deeper, almost intuitive understandings of one another, and
a richer set of alfiance values befitting a special relationship.
5. Harmonizing U.S. Aiiiances in East Asia
Fifth, having shored up our cornerstone alliance with Japan, we must face the
enormous task of harmonizing our Asian alliance policy, in particular with the Republic of
Korea. One of the reasons Asian strategists have long been enamored of the indirect
approach, is that they have understood that the direct approach often engenders a stiff
reaction. Thus, as U.S. Administration officials sought to redefine the U.S. -Japan alliance
last year, they faced vigorous opposition among those v\/ho found comfort in events such
as economic tensions or the tragic rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl. It was only after
China's assertiveness and North Koreas continued intransigence that a favorable
environment for a reaffirmation of the alliance with Japan became possible. I believe that
this is an important path, but U.S. policy makers can only make progress if we also
redouble our efforts to redefine the U.S.-ROK alliance-from a peninsula tripwire to a
regional stabilizer. The U.S.-ROK and U.S. -Japan alliances must become mutually
reinforcing if they are to be sustainable in coming decades. In any event, they must not
be allowed to work at cross purposes. We need to work with our South Korean allies on
two simultaneous tracks: one laying out a road map for bringing a lasting peace to the
peninsula, and the other exploring the U.S. -Korean alliance after the North Korean threat
is blunted.
6. Establishing a Political Framework for Northeast Asia
Sixth, the U.S.-ROK proposal fora2 + 2 (U.S. and South Korea, China and North
Korea) process for creating a permanent peace treaty closing out the Korean War, should
become the basis for establishing a political framework for Northeast Asia. Great-power
cooperation over North Korea's nuclear program can be the crucible out of which can
emerge not only a reduction in the enormous conventional military threat posed across
the Demilitarized Zone and an end to one of Asia's two divided nations, but, eventually,
a more stable security mechanism for East Asia in the next century. This framework at
least has a chance of averting a "hard landing" in North Korea. Moreover, while we
cannot integrate China into the region if Beijing officials refuse to uphold basic
international norms, we and our allies can help to make the political environment as
conducive as possible to China's peaceful integration. A regional political framework can
and should be part of a larger strategic understanding between the United States and
China.
50
7. Reexamining Forward Presence
Seventh and finally, the potential for a more peaceful Korean peninsula means that
we need to accelerate our thinking regarding our future military posture in the region.
While any major post-Cold War transition in our force posture should remain on hold until
further progress can be made in North-South relations, the prospect of such progress is
sufficiently high as to require us to examine the character of future American military
forces on the peninsula. When the North Korean threat dissipates, the U.S. will have a
strong interest in preserving forward bases for flexible and mobile forces ready to respond
to regional emergencies. Any residual U.S. presence on the peninsula would have to be
compact enough to avoid antagonizing China, but capable enough to demonstrate
America's long-term interest in presen/ing regional stability. Similarly, in Japan, what is
significant is the depth of our commitment and trust, intangibles that cannot be quantified
by such outmoded metrics as the number of military personnel stationed on foreign soil.
The U.S. can make its commitment to this region abundantly clear through a variety of
different-sized forces; whatever the size and shape of those forces, however, they ought
to represent our most advanced platforms and most disciplined troops, who will convey
the appropriate American image to the world's most dynamic region.
In summary, the diplomacy of the past few days can mark a watershed in our East
Asian strategy and posture. But if this diplomacy is lead to long-lasting benefits for our
national defense, then we will have to follow through with a number of fundamental
changes in how we do business. The stakes are too high to fail during this window of
opportunity when U.S. power remains preeminent.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
51
Pioymphy
James J. Przystup
James J. Przystup is Oiirctor of the Asian Studies Center at The
Heritage Foundation. Mr. Przystup graduated Summa Cxwa Laude fltrm die
University of Detroit and holds an MA in Intemationai Relations from the
University of Chicago and a Phi?, in Oipiomadc History also firom the
University of Chicago; he studied Jiyanese at Columbia University and at
Keio University in ToJcyo.
Mr Przystup has woHced on Asift-rslaied issues in the Congress, at the
House of Representatives* Subcommittee oo Asian and Pacific Af&drs; in
the private sector at fiocfau and IBM World TVade, Americas/Fkr East
Coipuiation; and in government at the Policy Planning Sta£Pat the
Dep«rtmeQt of State and in the OfiBcft of the Secxetaty of Defense, as
Director for R^onal Security Strat^ies on the Policy Planning Stafil In
1983-84, he served as Dqputy Director of the PreddenthU Advisory
Cotnmissioa on U.S.-/apan relations. Mr. Przystup has specialized in
Asian security issues, in particular the VJS.^Jspaa. security rdafionihtp.
Mr. PrzytUip ww presented whfa tbe State Department's Meritorious
Honor Award in 1889 and I99I; he also received the Defense Departmeat's
Outstanding Achievement Award in 1992.
52
James J. Przystup
Director,
Asian Studies Center,
The Heritage Foundation
April 17, 1996
House Committee on International Relations
Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs
53
In my remarks, I want to focus on United States security interests in Asia, in
particular Northeast Asia and our relations with Japan, China, and the Republic of Korea
as well as Bill Clinton's management of our relations with these key countries.
ENDURING STRATEGIC REALITIES
First, United States interests in Asia.
As John Don of The Heritage Foundation has pointed out, in 1994, U.S. exports
to Asia grew at a rate of 16.2% to more than $153 billion, the steepest increase since
1988. The prosperous nations of the region purchased over $45 billion more from U.S.
exporters than did the 1 5 nations of the European Union, and almost $30 million than
Europe as a whole. And exports to Asia mean jobs for Americans. In 1994 more than 3
million Americans owed their jobs to exports to Asia, with 428,000 jobs being created in
1994 alone.
The United States also has enduring strategic interests in Asia. For over a
century, the United States has pursued three major strategic objectives toward Asia:
protecting freedom of the seas; access to the markets of the region; and preventing any
single power, or group of powers, from dominating the region. And it has followed this
strategy with remarkable consistency, while adjusting tactics to fit the moment.
For example, in 1905, Theodore Roosevelt played balance of power with Japan
against Russia; then as Japanese pwwer waxed on the mainland in China and Manchuria,
Taft and Wilson shifted toward China; in the 1920's the U.S. tried multilateralism with
the Washington Conference System. After 1945, Washington evolved a bilateral alliance
structure to contain first the USSR, then the PRC. In the 1970's President Nixon joined
with China to oppose Soviet hegemony.
Today, Asia's security system is based essentially on the bilateral alliance
structure which the United States evolved during the Cold War. And the U.S.-Japan
Alliance remains the centerpiece of that system and the foundation of Asia's economic
dynamism and prosperity. This is of direct and immediate consequence to the security
and economic well-being of all Americans. Even with the end of the Cold War, the
alliance with Japan remains critical to American national interests.
Our alliance with Japan enhances our ability to keep Asia open to American
influence. United States forward deployed forces in Japan have helped to deter
aggression against our allies and friends in the region. This was recently demonstrated
last month when President Clinton order the deployment of the aircraft-carrier
Independence, home-ported in Yokosuka, Japan, to waters near Taiwan at the time of the
Republic of China's Presidential elections. This strategic importance has also been
54
evidenced by-our continuing ability to deter a possibly nuclear-armed North Korea from
attacking South Korea and reunifying the Korean Peninsula on communist terms.
BILL CLINTON AND ASIA
In judging Bill Clinton's Asia policy, I would simply re-ask Ronald Reagan's
penetrating question: are we better off today than we were four years ago? Across the
board, I would argue that the answer is clearly "No." Indeed, Bill Clinton's Asia policy,
like his overall foreign policy, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding with regard to
what drives the international system. That dynamic is not Somalia, not Haiti, not Bosnia,
not even Vietnam. What drives the international system are relations among the great
powers. And here our relations with Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul are both troubled and
troubling.
This is true because the coin of great powers is their credibility and their
constancy. And over the past four years the Clinton administration has liberally
squandered the efforts of Ronald Reagan and George Bush to rebuild the credibility of the
United States in Asia following the end of the Vietnam war and the debacle of Jimmy
Carter's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea.
Conceptually, in trade negotiations with Tokyo and in its MFN strategy toward
Beijing, the administration adopted an interesting strategy. It was a strategy that gave it
little room to maneuver politically or diplomatically - one that ultimately cost the U.S.
credibility in both capitals.
With its threats of trade wars and linking MFN to human rights, the
administration, in effect, took all the furniture (political cover) out of the negotiating
room, painted itself into a comer, turned to the other guy and said:
"We're stuck; and politically, we can't move. Now if you really value this
relationship, it's up to you to do something (agree to trade quotas/targets or
improve your human rights record) before we do something stupid (like starting a
trade war with 100% tariffs on automobiles, or costing American jobs by denying
MFN)."
In both cases, Tokyo and Beijing refused to go along. The administration had crawl out
its comer, declaring political victory at the cost of staggering blows to its credibility and
that of the United States.
With that as a prologue of sorts let me tum to first to Japan, then to China and
finally to the Korean Peninsula.
JAPAN:
55
EarlicBthis week. Bill Clinton reaffirmed the U.S. -Japan security alliance in
Tokyo. Given the challenges now facing the United States in Asia, from the Korean
Peninsula to China's increasingly aggressive conduct toward Taiwan and in the South
China Sea, a reaffirmation is both timely and necessary. This is true because for the
better part of the administration's first two and a half years. Bill Clinton's Japan policy
put at risk this critical relationship.
The Clinton administration came into office committed to forging a new U.S.-
Japan relationship. Its Japan policy, however, was based on a number of interlocking
miscalculations:
• The first was that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, security issues could be de-
emphasized in the U.S. -Japan relationship.
• The second was the over-emphasis placed on reducing the bilateral trade deficit.
Trade policy, originally conceived of as but one part of an overall Japan strategy,
quickly expanded in time and effort to become almost the entirety of tlie
administration's approach to Japan. In effect, Japan policy became an extension of
the 1992 campaign theme "It's the economy. Stupid." Seeing Japan through a mid
1980's time warp as an immutable economic juggernaut, the Clinton team was
committed to applying intense external pressure to get its way.
• The final miscalculation was that, in the post Cold War world, this pressure could be
applied with little collateral political damage.
Unfortunately, the administration was wrong across the board. Security in today's
post-Soviet world remains important, as North Korea's quest for nuclear weaponry and
China's aggressive behavior toward Taiwan have reminded Americans and Japanese
alike. Japan's economy was not immutable. By 1993, it was undergoing significant
structural change. This was the result of a five-year recession, brought on by the collapse
of its wildly-inflated late 1980's economy and a skyrocketing appreciation of the yen.
Finally, the administration paid a significant political cost in Japanese support for the
U.S. -Japan relationship and the alliance.
ECONOMICS IN COMMAND
Downplaying the U.S. -Japan Security Alliance, the administration quickly placed
economics and trade at the top of its agenda with Tokyo. The centerpiece of its strategy
was its New Economic Framework, a combination of economic and trade policies, hastily
cobbled together in Tokyo in July 1993. In effect, the New Economic Framework was an
attempt to manage trade with Japan.
Through a series of negotiations the Clinton administration attempted to pressure
the Japanese government into accepting targets for American exports to Japan. The
56
Framework taMcs were essentially geared to redeeming the President's promise to produce
results in politically sensitive sectors such as computers, telecommunications,
automobiles, and auto parts. Fearing that failure to meet such quotas would make Japan
a target for trade sanctions, Tokyo refiised to go along.
From the outset, the Framework talks were acrimonious, marked by a high degree
of suspicion, mistrust, and unprecedented in-your-face personal animosity. They did not
improve with age. In February 1994, at the Summit between Bill Clinton and then Prime
Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, the Japanese found that they could and did say "no" to the
administration's demands for managed trade. By the Spring of 1995, the administration
was poised for a trade war with Japan, threatening a 100 per cent tariff on the import of
Japanese luxury automobile unless Tokyo relented and signed up for managed trade.
In both countries, the media duly reported on and expounded on the tactics and
personalities of the negotiators and their countries. In both countries the media retreated
to familiar stereotypes — the untrustworthy, scheming Japanese versus the unreasonable,
demanding Americans.
In the end, agreements were signed but none contained enforceable quotas.
Typical was the conclusion of the auto parts negotiations. Two days af^er insisting that
the government of Japan had to be part of an agreement to g\iarantee compliance of
Japanese auto companies, USTR Mickey Kantor was forced to back down. To
underscore the extent of the administration's retreat the Japanese negotiator, Ryutaro
Hashimoto, now Japan's Prime Minister, made clear at a joint press conference that
Kantor was speaking solely for himself with regard to expectations for growth in
American exports to Japan. The Japanese government, he emphasized, was not
guaranteeing the deal.
ECONOMIC REALITIES and POLITICAL COSTS
I will not spend much time on the economic side of the relationship. Suffice it to
say that administration claims that its trade policies are responsible for the recent decline
in Japan's trade surplus with the United States represent political spin of the highest order
~ a striking example of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. The root causes for this
decline are to be found in the impact of global economic forces operating in Japan. In
reality, a substantial appreciation of the yen and high Japanese production costs are
transforming Japan's economy. Robert O'Quinn, my colleague at The Heritage
Foundation has taken a more detailed looked at the impact of these macroeconmic forces
on Japan, in our recent paper "Bill Clinton and Japan: Getting The Record Straight"
Beyond Japan's new Prime Minister, whose tough guy stance increased his
political standing in Japan, Framework talks, with the exception of auto parts
deregulation, were without real winners. But there were real los.ers, the biggest being
political support for the alliance and the bilateral relationship.
57
Yesterday's ABC poll reports that 70% of Americans now see Japan as unfairly
refusing to lower its trade surplus with the U.S., while a majority view Japan as a
untrustworthy ally.
According to polls conducted by the United States Information Agency, in June
1995, during the auto and auto parts negotiations, 39 per cent of Japanese respondents
saw trade conflicts as eroding the alliance, while 30 per cent saw the alliance as strong.
In the same poll, 51 per cent then considered relations as "poor" and only 41 per cent
viewed them as "good." In January, 1 996, 48 per cent thought the relationship in "poor"
shape. By contrast, in May, 1992, 43 per cent saw the alliance as strong despite trade
frictions.
Against this backdrop, the rape of a twelve-year old Okinawan school girl by
American servicemen last September triggered the most serious crisis in the United
States- Japan security relationship in decades. Calls for the withdrawal of U.S. forces
from Okinawa dominated Japan's political debate in October.
With the Okinawa crisis still smoldering, the President did not help matters when
he canceled his November state visit to Japan to deal with the budget battle in
Washington. Shortly before, Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian
and pacific Affairs, announced that cancellation would be tantamount to a "body blow" to
the alliance. Shortly thereafter, the President, in similar circumstances, did find time to
visit Ireland and Israel. Japanese media and political elite were quick to contrast the
President's political priorities. In January, 45 percent of Japanese thought the cancellation
had caused at least a fair amount of negative fallout.
Across the board. Bill Clinton's Japan policy has ill served the relationship once
defined by Ambassador Mike Mansfield as the United States' most important "bar none."
Were it not for the dedicated work of officials in the Pentagon, most notably Joseph Nye,
then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, there is no telling
how far the free fall in the relationship would have taken the alliance. Fortunately, these
officials recognized the damage being done by the administration's trade tactics and in
1 994 began the long, arduous task of bring the administration back to focusing on the
strategic centrality of the alliance. This is what has brought Bill Clinton to Tokyo. Better
late than never.
The Korean Peninsula:
First a review of the historical record. From late 1990 through January 20, 1993,
the Bush administration, working with our allies in the Republic of Korea and Japan, was
able to develop and implement a successful strategy toward North Korea. Our target was
North Korea's plutonium producing reactor at Yongbyon and the threat of nuclear
proliferation on the Peninsula. Our objective was to gain access to that reactor to
determine how much plutonium had been produced there. And we put this objective into
58
a broader strategy aimed at moving North Korea to deal with South Korea. On both
fronts we were able to get the ball rolling.
We were successful for a number of reasons. First, because we had the trust and
confidence of our South Korean allies. If someone asks why alliances remain important
even in today's post-Cold war world, our cooperation with the Republic of Korea is a
striking example of their enduring importance. Quite frankly, the steps we took to get us
to our goal were politically sensitive in both Washington and Seoul and could only have
been taken with the fiiU trust and confidence of our allies.
We were also successftil because we had a strategy and we knew where we were
going. This is fundamental. With a strategy, we were able to maintain the diplomatic
initiative. In effect the North was forced to react, retreat and open its reactor to
international inspection. At the same time, we were able to maneuver Pyongyang into
dealing directly with Seoul. This resulted in two significant agreements in late 1991 and
early 1992. The first was an agreement to denuclearize the Peninsula; the second was an
agreement on political reconciliation. However, by mid- 1992, implementation of these
two agreements was effectively frozen.
In early 1993, North Korea tested the new Clinton team. In March, Pyongyang
announced that North Korea would be leaving the IAEA. In effect, they were throwing
over the card table, calling for a new game, with Pyongyang as the dealer. Having paid
little attention to the Peninsula the administration was caught without a strategy and was
forced to react as the North called the tune. Anxious to keep North Korea in the game
and in the IAEA, the U.S. went along. This process continued through the signing of the
Nuclear Framework in October, 1995.
While North Korea has adhered to the terms of the Framework Accord, freezing
its heavy water reactors in exchange for international financing and construction of two
light water reactors as well as internationally financed oil shipments, it has also been able
to put off for years any inspection of nuclear waste sites, which it is obligated to allow as
a signatory of the IAEA.
Because of its preoccupation with the nuclear issue, the administration failed to
develop a broader strategy to address critical questions such as: the North's million man
army, its chemical and missile arsenal, North-South dialogue, and tension reduction
measures along the DMZ. Eighteen months after signing the Framework agreement, it is
painfully obvious that the administration continues to lack a strategy for dealing with
these larger security questions. It is also painfiilly obvious that it lacks a strategy for
managing the political transformation of the Peninsula. This even as North Korea shows
evidence of increasing internal stress and strain.
Thus, there has been no significant progress in the key issues which will
determine the fate of the Peninsula. Indeed, the North's recent trashing of the Armistice
reminds us that the most difficult challenges remain ahead.
59
For years North Korea's strategy has aimed at driving a wedge between the
United States and the Republic of Korea, thus marginalizing the government in Seoul
which the North continues to brand as an illegitimate puppet of the United States.
Indeed, it skillfully used the negotiations leading up to the Framework Agreement to do
just that. During this perio.d, a senior ROK official, with whom we had worked in
evolving our strategy toward North Korea during the Bush years, remarked to me that the
trust and confidence that allowed us to be successful in 1991 were now sadly lacking.
Wedge driving was working.
And the North is still at it. Last week, in a New York Times op-ed page article by
Selig Harrison, North Korea test-marketed a new version of its old product. According to
General Ri Chan Bok, the North Korean Army representative at Panmunjon, North Korea
is no longer insisting on a peace treaty with the U.S. that excludes the South. However, it
is insisting that the armistice be replaced. And, because the South is not a signatory to
the armistice, the North is insisting that Seoul cannot be a fiill party to the two-track
system that the North has designed to replace it.
According to the article, the North's new Mutual Security System, which would
replace the armistice and its Military Affairs Commission, would be composed of U.S.
and North Korean military officers operating alongside the North-South Military
Commission which the North and South agreed to in 1992 but never implemented. The
correct first step would be for the North to deal directly with the South as it did in late
1991 and early 1992.
This proposal is basically old wine in new bottles. Our terms for any replacement
of the armistice must result in U.S. and South Korea side by side on the bottom line.
Because true peace will come to the Peninsula only when the North accepts and deals
directly with the South, U.S. strategy should avoid a broker's role. We can facilitate but
we cannot and should not negotiate for the South. Rather,our objective should be to
move the North to deal directly with the South.
CHINA:
Even before the start. Bill Clinton put his credibility on the line with China. As a
candidate, he made clear that he would not be George Bush when it came to dealing with
the "Butchers of Beijing." In the public debate over how to get tough with China, there
were strong sentiments in the Democratic party that MFN should be linked to China's
performance on human rights. Bill Clinton certainly did not stand against the tide.
Things looked different once in the White House. The U.S. business community
made clear to the new president that MFN was, at the political bottom line, a jobs issue.
In 1993, the president waffled, extending MFN conditionally - over the next twelve
months China would have to make progress in its human rights record or lose MFN next
year. By early 1994, little progress was evident. .And so in March, he sent Warren
60
Christopher to, Beijing, where as the Herblock cartoon of that visit so graphically put it,
the Chinese leadership handed him his head on a platter. Less than three months later,
China got exactly what it wanted -- MFN delinked from Human Rights. And Bill
Clinton, backing out of the comer he had painted himself into, announced a new strategy
~ comprehensive engagement.
From Beijing's perspective. Bill Clinton had agreed with their principled position,-
delinking trade from human rights, but he paid a significant price in credibility in getting
to their bottom line. In a system in which politics is a zero-sum game. Bill Clinton's
walking away from such publicly taken political positions came at a high cost. Make no
mistake about it, delinking MFN and human rights was the correct decision but it was
made in the worst possible way ~ the result of self-inflicted wounds.
Then, in response to Chinese navy occupation of Mischief Reef, an atoll well
within the Philippines internationally recognized 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone, the
Clinton administration took close to three months to put out a mild expression of regret in
ihe form of a diplomatic protest. It would seem that China's sole miscalculation was not
over what Washington would do, but over Philippines President Ramos' willingness to
stand up.
In any case, comprehensive engagement was making some strides over the
autumn of 1 994 and spring of 1 995 — a military-to-military strategic dialogue was
initiated. But, then came Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui. After publicly making clear
that the granting of a visa to President Lee to visit his alma mater, Cornell University,
would violate the administration's one China policy and communicating that position to
China's Foreign Minister (albeit with some finely nuanced language that the position was
without political support) the administration again waffled, wavered, and ultimately
issued the visa. Beijing was fiirious. Without access to reporting from Beijing, I think
it fair to say that China's Foreign Minister found that he had a lot of explaining to do.
Beijing's initial response to President Lee's visit, a series of military exercises and
test shots of nuclear capable missiles directed at Taiwan last July, drew another
expression of regret from the administration. In December, after Taiwan's legislative
elections had again drawn Beijing's military ire, a U.S. carrier task force transited the
South China Sea near Taiwan. When this became public knowledge, the administration
and the task force appeared lost in a fog. It seems the White House just did not want to
take credit for this long overdue signal of American interest in developments in the South
China Sea.
Finally, in March, as Taiwan moved toward its Presidential election, the first
direct election of a Chinese leader in China's five thousand year history, China again
resorted to missile diplomacy, firing test shots into international waters near Taiwan's
two major ports, the administration acted and took credit for it, deploying the carriers.
Independence and Nimitz, to the waters near Taiwan. This was a clear signal of U.S.
interest.
61
So 'bur years into Bill Clinton's presidency, how do things stand with China? In
two words "Not well." Yet this relationship is singularly important for the United States,
for China, and for the international system. Indeed China's emergence as a great power,
given its resources, population, economic dynamism, and military potential, will be the
defining structural issue for the international system for the first quarter of the next
century. Personally, I don't think there is a close second. If there is, it is not Somalia,
Haiti, or Bosnia.
Since Deng Xiaoping initiated his economic reforms in 1978, modernization has
been at the core of China's national strategy. To foster economic growth and stability in
China and in the region was deemed paramount. To this end, from the mid-1980's China
normalized diplomatic relations with Singapore, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, and
eventually Vietnam ~ all countries with whom it had long and difficult relationships. In
the diplomacy which produced the Paris Peace Accords on Cambodia, Beijing walked
away from its long-standing ally, the Khmer Rouge. And it has exercised a restraining
influence on North Korea. At the same time, China has demonstrated that it is prepared
to use force -- against Vietnam, in the South China Sea, and toward Taiwan.
What kind of a power is China? Well, it certainly is one with a long history of
wrongs suffered at the hands of 19th and 20th century imperial powers. As a result it is
particularly sensitive to issues affecting China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
That's understandable. Unfortunately, its definition of sovereignty tends to be both
extensive and expansive. In Beijing last year I was told that we couldn't discuss Taiwan,
a sovereignty issue; nor IPR, a sovereignty issue; nor China's missile sales to the Middle
East, a sovereignty issue; nor the South China Sea, a sovereignty issue; and of course not
human rights, likewise a sovereignty issue. Of course, we can, have, and must discuss
these issues.
TTiere is much talk these days about China as the next threat and of the need to
evolve a new containment to deal with China. Let me say that I'm agnostic about China.
I also think we need to think about China as a much more complex reality. China is
neither black nor white but a rather ambiguous gray.
But the policy debate over China today tends to revolve around the question of
whether China will be cooperative or hegemonic in Asia, whether it will be white or
black. As if the two were mutually exclusive. In fact, reality is much more complex.
And, the two categories are not mutually exclusive. In the Western hemisphere, in fact,
they go hand in hand. For over two hundred years, in our neighborhood, we have been
both cooperative and hegemonic. 95 percent of the time, the United States is cooperative.
Trade flourishes, everyone profits. But 5 percent of the time, we take the gloves off and
act like the true hegemons we are in our neighborhood.
Where do we go from here? A good starting point would be to begin to treat
China with the respect due a great power and for China to act like a responsible great
power. We can do so, if our interests are clear, are pursued consistently, and we can do
.'^.S-ftft.'^ flfi - .-^
62
so in a non-copfrontational way. In the end, we cannot make China do what it does not
want to do. The best we can do, together with our allies and friends, is to attempt to
create an environment which will incline China to do the right thing. If we find China
failing to do so, we can and must adjust our policies accordingly.
CONCLUSION:
How far has our credibility fallen in the region four years into Bill Clinton's
Presidency? Let me close this analysis with the observation of a very senior Southeast
Asian official, one who knows the U.S. well. Less than a year ago, he told me: "In
Washington, policy is all fog and spin. You do it ten hours a day, go home have a
Martini and start all over the next day, probably safe in the assumption that beyond the
belt-way nobody's paying the least attention. But out here, perhaps to a fault, we do
listen to what you say and watch what you do. And that's what's so disconcerting. If
you can't manage relations with Japan and China, you're out of business out here and
that's not in our interest." This was said as talk of a trade war with Japan escalated in
Washington and before Lee Teng-hui's visit.
But I just don't want to be anecdotal. As the Taiwan crisis heated up last
December, Australia's Sidney Morning Herald published a leaked government
intelligence assessment in which Canberra concluded that the Clinton administration
"appears incapable of developing and pursuing ... policies which would promote effective
management of the problem. The very stakes involved, Australian officials argued,
"should impress on the U.S. the need for an active policy of preventive diplomacy," but
unfortimately, their assessment was that "Washington gives no confidence that it is able
to devise and implement such a policy." This from among the United States most trusted
of allies.
In sum, in this strategically critical and economically dynamic region of the
world, the United States is not better off today than it was four years ago. And Bill
Clinton has been in charge.
10
63
JONATHAN D. POLLAOR
BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT
Jonatlian D. PolUek !• 8«nior Advl«or fbr Int«rn«tlonAl Policy at RAND, Santa
Monfoa, Call/bmUL B«twMii 1990 and U04, b« »«rr«d u RAND'a Corporat*
Reavarcb Managar far Intejnaatlonal Policy and haadad tha Intamatlanal Policy
Department.
A apedaliat on Saat Adan polltleal and aecuxity ailaln (aapedally China),
Dr. Ponaekjolnad RAND in 1978. Ha reeeivad hia MA. and PhJ>. from tha
Univ«r«ity of Michigan. Ho haa alao baan a poat-doetoral iUlow at Harvard
UnlTwntty, and haa tatii^ at BrandaU Unlvartlty. In addition, ba haa aerred on
tha faculty of the RAND.UCLA Center fior Soviet Studiaa and the RAND Qradxiate
School of PoUcy Studlea.
Dr. PoUack'a current reeearch activltiae are fbeuaed on ft>Tir principal areea: (1)
deaigning and implementing a framework fbr U3.-Korean aecurlty cooperation in
the 81«t eentaiy; (2) China'a deftoae modemiaatlan and Ita regional implicatlona;
(8) export oorvtrol atrategies and optiona in the poet-Cold War era; and (4) the
dynamlca of Chineae-Iranlan relatione. /
Dr. Pollack haa publlahed widely on Cbinat't political and iferategie rolaa; the
intematianal poUtiea of Aaia; U.S. poUey in Asia and Uia Padfie; and Cfalneee
technologleel and miHtaiy development. Hia recent atudlea inolude: Sftouid tht
Unit9d SttUms Worry Abota th* Chufm-Iranlon Steurity JUlatUmsh^f (1894); A
fftw AUianet /br tht Ntxi C*ntwy: Tht Futur* of U.S.-ibrtan Security Coojttration
(co^otfaor, 1895): China"* Air Fttro* Bniu^ tfit Sltt Ctntury (eo-aotbor, 1996>, KoMt
Asia'M PoHntial fi>r Instability and CrisU (co-editor, 1996); and Dttigning a Nto
Amtrican Bteutity StraUgy fiar Asia (1996).
April 18M
64
Prepared Statement
of
Dr. Jonathan D. Pollack
Senior Advisor for International Policy
RAND
April 17,1996
House Committee on International Relations
Asia and the Pacific Subcommittee
65
Mr. Chairman:
I am honored to be asked to present my views to the Asia and the
Pacific Subcommittee. I have prepared a short written statement that I
will read this afternoon. With the Chairman's concurrence, I am also
entering into the record a more detailed assessment of U.S. strategy for
Asia that I recently prepared for the Council on Foreign Relations, as
well as a review of U.S. policy developments in Asia in 1995, published
in Asian Survey.
66
U.S. SECURITY INTERESTS IN NORTHEAST ASIA:
BACK TO BASICS, BUT WITH THE LONG TERM IN MIND*
Jonathan D. Pollack
President Clinton's visit this week to the Republic of Korea and to
Japan provides an important reminder of the enduring American commitment
to the stability and well being of Northeast Asia. Throughout the Cold
War, our bilateral security treaties with Korea and Japan defined
America's principal security obligations in the region, and the
continuity of both relationships over the past half decade underscores
the intrinsic value the United States attaches to these ties, with or
without the Soviet Union.
But this judgment can easily obscure the forces at work that will
redefine these ties in the years to come. A shared desire by leaders on
both sides of the Pacific to reaffirm the centrality of U.S. relations
with Korea and Japan, though helpful in stabilizing existing
relationships, cannot be expected to sustain these ties on an open-ended
basis. If the U.S. -Korean and U. S . -Japanese alliances are to retain
their vitality and relevance in the future, neither we nor our regional
partners should assume that the status quo is indefinitely sustainable.
The Clinton Administration's commitment, embodied in the East Asian
strategy review of February 1995, to maintain the forward deployment of
100,000 U.S. forces in the Pacific, though comprehensible in relation to
current defense planning requirements, would simply not be credible in
the event of appreciable change in the regional security environment.
*The views in this testimony are my own, and should not be
attributed to RAND or to any of its sponsors.
67
2 -
This judgment assumes particular relevance on the Korean peninsula, the
principal locale that has shaped U.S. regional military strategy for
decades. Senior U.S. officials, very recently including General
Shalikashvili , Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, continue to assert
that either implosion or explosion of the North Korean state is
inevitable. Although no one is bold enough to predict when such events
might transpire, the fact that our defense planners point to North
Korea's inevitable demise underscores an obvious judgment: che time to
be planning for Northeast Asia beyond a divided Korean peninsula is now,
not when endgame unfolds in the North.
It is gratifying that President Clinton has opted to again visit
Northeast Asia after a nearly three year hiatus. Even a brief visit can
do much to underscore a renewed U.S. commitment to the security of the
region. But this visit will quickly recede into memory unless the
Clinton Administration, working in close conjunction with the Congress
and with our regional allies, signals unambiguously its intention to-
address the immediate problems as well as the longer term challenges. I
would characterize a viable, long-term U.S. strategy as entailing three
central components: (1) preparing fully to address existing threats to
regional peace and stability, in which North Korea is the central
factor; (2) adapting our bilateral security alliances to the emergent
challenges of the next century; and (3) achieving a more satisfactory
and sustainable relationship--including in the security arena--with the
region's ascendant powers, in particular China. These three components
are interrelated. In my remarks today, I will limit myself to
considering how they interact in the context of the security of Korea
68
- 3
and Japan, as influenced by the domestic forces on both sides of the
Pacific that will shape our future policy options.
North Korea
The "North Korean issue" has been with us for so long and in so
many ways that it is difficult to imagine when the United States and the
ROK were not preoccupied by it. Many observers insist that North Korean
behavior is impossible to fathom or predict, but this is true only in a
tactical, not a strategic, sense. Regardless of the obscurity of
decisionmaking in Pyongyang, North Korean strategy remains eminently
predictable. Its leaders--whoever they may be--continue to maximize
their leverage very skillfully. They seek to parlay their vulnerable,
isolated circumstances to advantage, hoping to seize the policy
initiative wherever possible, but without conferring legitimacy or
normalcy on relations with their now far more powerful neighbor to the
South. Given the North's extraordinary isolation and increasingly
parlous economic and social circumstances, this is no mean feat. North
Korea's goal is to avoid irrelevance and, ultimately, extinction. Its
survival as a system is predicated on somehow keeping intact and afloat,
without taking political steps that will lead to the unraveling of state
power: hence the extreme aversion in Pyongyang to regular dealings with
Seoul, and the continued cultivation of direct ties with the United
States .
North Korea continues to pursue a very high risk strategy, at least
at the level of appearances, on nuclear weapons, on ballistic missiles,
on the armistice agreement, and even on humanitarian assistance. The
United States needs to walk a very fine line between prudenc exploration
69
of ties with a very dangerous regime, without undermining the far more
consequential ties we retain with the Republic of Korea. It is
therefore especially important that the President decided to visit
Korea, after having initially and unwisely opting to limit his Northeast
Asia visit to Japan alone. To have missed the opportunity to reaffirm
U.S.-ROK political and security ties through the President's physical
presence on Korean territory, especially at a time of mounting concern
about potential volatility in North Korea, would have been precisely the
wrong signal to send--to Seoul, to Pyongyang, and to the region as a
whole .
A presidential visit, however, should also stimulate clear
indications of our readiness to attend to the potential near-term
uncertainties on the peninsula, and to begin by word and deed to plan
for the longer run. In this context, I applaud the administration's
joint initiative with the ROK for a "two plus two" peace 'framework on
the peninsula. This formula keeps attention focused primarily but -not
exclusively on the relationship between the two Koreas, with the United
States and China prepared to serve as guarantors for whatever agreement
might transpire between Seoul and Pyongyang.
For good measure, this close consultation with the ROK ensures that
North Korea makes no headway whatsoever in its ongoing efforts to inject
friction and cleavage in the U.S.-ROK alliance. We can do little to
determine North Korean strategy and we have even less ability to prevent
severe instability in the North. But we also need to signal clearly
that we are ready to move ahead with North Korea, assuming that the
70
options fully and appropriately serve our longer-term interests on the
peninsula .
Redefining America's Security Alliances
As we can begin to discern if not presume a Northeast Asia beyond a
North Korean threat, the central challenge in America's alliances with
both Korea and Japan will be to define them in a manner that is
sustainable and viable into the next century. This is easier said than
done. There is the inevitable risk of "overdriving one's headlights" --
i.e., pushing too far and fast in a way that could undermine our
political, security, and economic interests. But there is an equal risk
of being overly inertial in our alliance strategies, relying on
approaches that have outlived their utility. In this regard, I believe
there is a natural complementarity of interests between the expectations
of the American people to ensure that our regional security partners
fulfill their responsibilities in a manner commensurate with their
capabilities, needs, and desires, and the parallel desire of our
regional partners for a larger say in decisions that affect their long-
term national interests. A new alliance bargain would be less
asymmetrical in patterns of influence and decisionmaking, more
responsive to preferences and sensitivities of local constituencies, and
more attentive to how we and our regional partners will resolve the
conflicts of interest that inevitably arise in bilateral alliances.
Indeed, on the expectation that immediate threats to the physical
security of either Korea or Japan diminish, we should anticipate that
the potential for such conf licts--on issues from base locations to
technology transfer to burden sharing--will increase accordingly.
71
6 -
But these differences are not unbridgeable: they reflect the
inevitable growing pains as both Korea and Japan strive to define an
alliance framework relevant to very different circumstances. The recent
tensions over Okinawa, and comparable pressures to renegotiate land use
agreements in Korea, reflect the realities that the United States will
need to address if it is to ensure continuity in security ties not only
with leaders in both countries, but with their domestic publics. This
said, I believe the United States and Japan and the United Scates and
Korea will benefit far more from sustaining close relations than by
going our separate ways. Under the latter circumstances, the bonds and
obligations that have developed over the decades would attenuate, and
the regional security environment could become much less predictable.
The United States must therefore convey unambiguously that a redefined
security tie with either or both countries is not the precursor to U.S.
disengagement. /
But there is a parallel and potentially more daunting challenge.
Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. -Japan alliance and the U.S. -Korea
alliance were kept highly distinct from one another. This seemed
appropriate to the very different security challenges faced by the two
countries and the character and expectations of the U.S. political-
military role in its relations to Tokyo and to Seoul. Should the North
Korean threat either diminish sharply or disappear altogether, the
peninsular logic that has defined U.S. -Korean relations for decades
would cease to be relevant. The framework of alliances ties would no
longer be preponderantly peninsular, and would be much more regional in
its thrust. The logic of U . S . -Japanese defense collaboration (as
72
7 -
evidenced by Japan's newly enunciated National Defense Program Outline
and the security declaration that President Clinton will sign in Tokyo)
also entails dimensions that are more regional in their logic, and less
exclusively focused on the defense of the home islands.
But the relationship between Japan and Korea remains extremely
unhealthy, as reflected most recently in the differences between Tokyo
and Seoul on delineating their respective maritime boundaries and
exclusive economic zones (EEZs). The reasons for these differences are
far too complex for discussion today. But it ill behooves long-term
American interests that we retain separate, vigorous security ties with
two very important market economies and democracies that are near-
neighbors without either or both being able to achieve full normalcy in
their respective bilateral relations. It should be a stated goal of
U.S. policy to seek to bridge these differences from which neither
country (nor the longer term stability of the region as a whole) can
possibly benefit. It is incumbent on the United States to play a lead
role in this respect, so that we as well as our two close allies can
achieve true normalcy and compatibility in their long-term national
strategies. Without such an effort, we will simply be trading the acute
tensions of the Cold War for a new rivalry and regional instability from
which the United States cannot possibly benefit.
Dealing with China
These hearings are limited principally to Japan and Korea, but it
is impossible to think about either country's long-term future or long-
term U.S. regional strategy without a clear sense of how China fits in
relation to both. Indeed, the U.S.-ROK initiative for a "two plus two"
73
framework in Korea explicitly recognizes that without a full and
constructive relationship between China, the United States, and China's
regional neighbors, it will be impossible to achieve a stable long-term
political and strategic framework for the region. China, for its part,
voices growing concern that the United States will somehow employ its
existing (and now newly invigorated) security ties with Tokyo to inhibit
China's full development and incorporation within the emergent regional
order .
This is clearly not a preferred goal of long-term U.S. strategy
toward China. But the uncertainties about China's longer-term ambitions
and capabilities remain ample--even as all regional states as well as
the United States seek to become fully involved in the economic
development of China . As the United States seeks to fashion its future
ties with both Korea and Japan, it is critical that we be able to
explore fully and frankly our respective interests and relations with
China. This is as relevant to dealing with a successfully modernizing,
cooperative Chinese state as it is to one that' could well pose serious
political and security challenges to its neighbors. Without such a
close and sustained policy dialogue, each country could well proceed to
pursue its interests and policy concerns in largely uncoordinated
fashion. It is impossible to see how this will benefit the collective
interests of the United States, Korea, and Japan. It will also be
through such a process that China can become more sensitized to its
long-term interests in a manner that will maximize the opportunities for
realizing a durable, peaceful regional order.
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- 9
It belabors the obvious that such a future prospect will not emerge
of its own accord. Even as the United States very appropriately seeks
to reinvigorate alliance ties that have been somewhat frayed with both
Korea and Japan, we must look beyond present realities to longer-tern
regional possibilities on which America's security and livelihood will
assuredly depend. This is a challenge that goes well beyond a single,
and rather brief, presidential visit to Northeast Asia, and must involve
the Congress in a full and constructive role, as well. The time to
begin is now.
75
MARVIN C. OTT
Areas of Exp«r1enc« and Exparllaa
Southeast Asia
East Asia and the Pacific
Intelligence Production and Oversight
U.S. Foreign and Security Policy
Personal Data
Address: 5204 Murray Road Phone: (301) 656-4543 (H)
Chevy Chase, MD 2081 5 (202) 685-4362, ext. 628 (W)
FAX: (202) 685-4292
Marital Status: Married (EmiUne)
Education
Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) 9/63-2/71.
Received M.A. 6/65. Ph.D. 2/71 .
Phi Beta Kappa.
Oanfonh, Woodrow Wilson, Fulbright, and NDFL Fellowships.
Rhodes semiflnalist
Chung Chi College, Hong Kong 9/61-6-62 (on leave from Redlands).
University ol Redlands 9/59-6-63. Received B.A. Summa cum laude 6/63
Currant Position
Professor of National Security Policy, National War College.
Prior Positions
Deputy Staff Director, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1990-1992.
Professional Staff. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1985-1990.
Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment, 1984-1985.
ConsciltarTt, National Academy of Sciences, 1984-85.
Chairperson, Insular Southeast Asia, Foreign Service Institute, 1984-85.
Senior Armlyst, Central tntelliger>ce Agency, Office of East Asia, Directorate of
Intellgenoe, 1982-84.
Offioe of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress.
Director Cor>gre8sional artd Institutional Relat'ions, 1980-82.
Senior Staff (Associate). 1979-80.
Professional Staff, 1977-78.
Consultant. 1976.
76
Mount Holyoke Collegs
Assodate Professor, 1976
Director. Washington Internship Program, 1974-76.
Assistant Professor, 1972-75.
Instructor, 1968-71.
Admitted to U.S. Foreign Service. Appofntment dacNned.
Researcher and Speech Writer for Senator Joseph Tyd^ngs, U.S. Senate. 9/65-5/66.
Teaching Assistant, Johns Hopkins University (SAiS), 9/65-5/66.
Graduate Intern in Vietnam, USOM (AID) Saigon, 8/65-9/65.
Served in Dartac Province, centra/ highlands of Vietnam.
Foreign Affairs Assistant, Congo-Rwanda-Burundi Desk, Department of State (AID),
6/64-9/64.
Summer Intern, Korea Desk, Department of State, 6/63-9-63.
Instructor, YBU English School. Kyoto, Japan, 6/62-9/62.
Selected Publications
"Southeast Asia: Security Among the Mini-Oraflons," in if.S. Foreian and Sar^epic
Policv In the -Post-Cold War Era. Greenwood Put>lishere, 1995.
'Shaking Up the CIA," Foreign Poitcy. No. 93, Winter 93-94.
Author of approximately 80 ops eds In ms^or newspapers lnc)udir\g Los Angeles Times,
Washington Post, Intemationai Herafd Tribune, Christian Science Ntonitor.
Technok>gy Assessment In the Congress," Conpr^s and the Burvi«*^g Westview
Press, 1969.
The PhlHpplnfts: A Situation Report. Staff Report to the Senate Select Committee on
IrrtelBgence, 1985.
■Japan in the ^Addle East: The (mpfications for the U.S., SAJS Review. Fall 1985.
"Japan Looks to the Middle East," Asm PadHc? CQn)muntty. Sun:wner 1985.
"Coal Skirry Pipelines: A Technology Assessment.* ^nerifv PoBcy ModeHpg: U,S, and
Canadian Experlencee. Martinus hM)hof1 Pubishers, 1980.
Chapters in 10 major Office of Teohnoksgy AssessmerA reports (1978-82) Including
Nuclear Proliferation and Sateouarda. Coal Slurry PioeBnes. Anah/als of
Proposed Nattonal Energy Pian. The Direct Use of Coal. Technoloqv and Third
World Devetooment. Techncloov and East-West Trade. AooHcation of Solar
EfWrOY TgChnPtoay. The Effgflg of Nwcfgy War, world Petroleum Avallabintv.
World PoPUtelion and PflrtHitY Planning TechnolOQiea.
Contributions to Encvctooadla Amerioana Yea?t>ook. 1976-77.
"Environmental Decay and lni»matk>nel PoBtice: The Uses of Sovereignty,"
EnvfronmentalAfflairs. Vol HI. No. 4, 1974.
The Environmental Criste: tmemaUonal and Supranational Approaches," lnternatk)r\a|
RelaHona (London), November 1974.
Thft NftirtraHation of Southoaat A>tia; Ttw MatoyslftiVAfiEAN ProooMl. Papers in
IntemationaJ Studies, Southeast Asia, Series No. 33, Ohto University Center for
Intemattonal Studies, 1974.
77
Testimony before the House International Relations
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, April 17, 1996
Dr. Marvin C. Ott
Professor, National Security Policy, National War College
[The views expressed here are personal and not necessarily
those of the National War College or the Department of Defense]
Mr. Chairman:
This subcommittee needs no reminder of the intrinsic importance of Northeast Asia
to U.S. security interests. The U.S. fought two major war there in the last naif century
and the region was the staging area for a third. While U.S. forward military
deployments in Europe have been steadily drawn down, those in Northeast Asia have
remained stable with no projected reductions in the aggregate. Between them Korea
and Japan host 85,000 American military personnel and both countries are
longstanding treaty partners of the U.S. When the Defense Department plans its force
structure around two MRCs it has the Persian Gulf and Northeast Asia principally in
mind. This region, along with North America and Western Europe, is the site of the
world's most advanced and productive economies. It also embodies some of the
deepest national animosities and suspicions. But most important, this region
comprises the next global great power, China, and two of the most threatening
potential conflict situations in Korea and the Taiwan Straits. Both, of course, have
been in the news in recent weeks with the Taiwan Straits the site of the Chinese effort
at raw intimidation of the government and populace of Taiwan and the Korean DMZ
the site of a staged provocation by North Korean soldiers accompanied by talk from a
senior DPRK officer of the inevitability of war on the Peninsula.
All these factors lie behind the remarkable spectacle of the President, the
Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense ail visiting the region for a series of head
of state and ministerial level meetings focused on security issues.
35-883 96-4
78
For purposes of our discussion here this afternoon I propose to offer some
thoughts that bear on U.S. security interests concerning Japan, China, and Korea.
Japan
The U.S. -Japan relationship has long been bifurcated along security and economic
dimensions. Whereas the security relationship hasa been a close and cooperative
one for five decades, the economic relationship has produced a secular trend of
growing tension punctuated by periodic crises. These same two tracks characterize
the purely Asian dimension of the relationship.
As in so many other areas of foreign policy, the Cold War provided a conceptual
clarity in U.S. -Japan relations. From Washington's perspective, there was never any
serious doubt that security issues had to be accorded the highest priority and
everything else, including important economic interests, were of secondary concern.
Washington's priority fit Tokyo's requirements like a glove. Faced with a serious
Soviet security threat but hamstrung by a population with fresh memories of Japan's
prewar militarization and where that led, the Japanese government was happy to hand
the security burden to the U.S. and focus national energies on economic construction.
This broad strategy was enunciated by Japan's first important post-war Prime Minister,
Yoshida Shigeru, in close consultation with General Douglas MacArthur - Japan's
American Shogun. The Yoshida Doctrine remained the largely unchallenged
framework for Japanese foreign and security policy into the late 1980's - and arguably
until the present time.
From Tokyo's perspective there was no reason to tamper with success. And the
success was spectacular. From postwar ruin Japan emerged as one of the world's
two most powerful and advanced economies with a per capita income second to none.
In return for such benefits, Japan hosted (and defrayed an increasingly large
proportion of the costs of) substantial U.S. forces and provided consistent loyal
support to U.S. policy initiatives from Indochina, to Iran, to the Caribbean Basin.
The U.S. security presence in Asia had other important elements, of course: a
large military presence in the Republic of Korea, major naval and air bases in the
Philippines, and military facilities on U.S. territories in the South Pacific stretching back
to the headquarters of the Pacific Command in Hawaii. This physical presence was
79
buttressed by formal defense treaties with Japan, Korea, Thailand, The Philippines,
Australia, and New Zealand. And there was more. Beginning in the early 1970's the
U.S. and China forged a de facto security relationship aimed at curbing Soivet (and
later Vietnamese) ambitions. In addition, Washington retained a close, de facto,
security relationship with Taiwan. Political support for the U.S. security presence in
East Asia was widespread throughout the region. And everywhere it was understood
that the indispensable cornerstone of this entire edifice was the U.S. -Japan Mutual
Security Treaty.
In recent years, however, the processes of historical change have begun to alter
the verities of the Cold War period. The list is a familiar one.
+) The collapse of South Vietnam eliminated American military access to facilities at
Cam Ranh Bay while damaging the credibility of U.S. security guarantees.
+) The Philippine Senate's rejection of a new U.S. lease at Subic Bay (combined with
the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo that put Clark AFB out of commission) removed the
southern anchor of U.S. military power.
+) Long established political verities changed with the end of the LDP's 38 year reign
in Japan and the emergence of civilian democratic government in Korea after three
decades of military rule.
+) The 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square brought the U.S. honeymoon with China
to an abrupt end followed by several years of tense acrimony over a range of
economic, political and security issues.
+) U.S. -Japan security relations began, for the first time, to feel some negative effects
from growing animosity between Tokyo and Washington over trade.
+) Influential voices in Japan - notably Morita and Ishihara in their book. The Japan
That Can Sav No - began to articulate a conservative nationalist critique of a
relationship that seemed to them to relegate Japan to the status of America's junior
partner.
+) Japanese tolerance for hosting nearly 50 thousand U.S. Armed Forces personnel
was severely tested by a brutal incident involving three Marines on Okinawa.
+) Most important, the Cold War came to an end; the Soviet Union disappeared and
with it part of the core rationale for the Mutual Security Treaty, not to mention the
80
entire U.S. security presence in Asia. In operational terms, the Soviet Pacific Fleet
ceased to be a major factor in the East Asian military equation which in turn raised
questions concerning the continued mission for the U.S. Seventh Fleet.
However, in the years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. security presence
in Asia (and the Mutual Security Treaty) have not dissolved, but have been
significantly reconstituted. This has been largely a consequence of the following East
Asian security realities.
+) Tensions remain high in Korea and with the advent of the North Korean nuclear
weapons and missile development (and export) programs, the stakes have grown
considerably. The death of Kim ll-song, the prolonged succession, the deepening
economic crisis in North Korea, and Pyongyang's willingness to tamper with the 1953
Armistice arrangements have all created new uncertainties and dangers.
+) China's policies and behavior in the Taiwan Straits and South China Sea coupled
with increased military capability (as demonstrated by recent missile tests near
Taiwan's coast) has generated growing uneasiness along the Pacific Rim. Here too
the uncertainties of political succession add to the apparent dangers.
In short, the Cold War may be over in Europe, but the perceived threat
environment in Asia as viewed from Washington and Tokyo remains far from benign.
A number of policy and programmatic initiatives have followed.
+) Following the lead of Singapore, most of the ASEAN countries have negotiated
agrements providing access for U.S. forces to selected naval and air facilities.
+) The U.S. responded to the loss of Clark and Subic with a modified Asian security
strategy first articulated in the Fast Asian Strategy Initiative and in subsequent
sequels. The new policy was captured in two phrases: "places not bases" and
"cooperative engagement." It took advantage of the new opportunities for access in
Southeast Asia by, in effect, disbursing the U.S. security presence in the region.
+) This new strategy was built on an old foundation -- the Mutual Security Treaty with
Japan. EASI and its successors strongly reaffirmed the critical importance of the U.S.
Japan relationship and, not coincidentally, certain functions and facilities (princiapally
involving training) formerly established at Subic were transferred to Yokosuka Naval
Base. The Pentagon mounted a highly visible effort led by Assistant Secretary of
81
Defense, Joseph Nye, to rebuild with Tokyo the firewall that has long insulated
defense equities from trade tensions.
+) On the Japanese side, senior government official, including then Prime Minister
Murayama, repeatedly and emphatically reaffirmed support for the U.S.-Japanese
alliance. By reversing the Socialist Party's long opposition to the Mutual Security
Treaty, Murayama in effect made it unanimous across the Japanese political
spectrum. This development was given some additional credibility by the perception
that the "revolution" in Japanese politics embodied in the sudden rise of former Prime
Minister Hosokawa and the equally sudden eclipse of the Liberal Democratic Party,
was less far-reaching than it had first appeared.
At the same time, responding in part to U.S. prodding, Tokyo began to assume a
more proactive role in international affairs generally and in security matters
specifically. Benchmarks included the passage of legislation permitting the
participation of uniformed JSDF peronnel in the United Nations peacekeeping
operation in Cambodia and Japan's close collaboration with the U.S. and ROK in the
difficult nuclear negotiations with North Korea.
What Japan has not yet done is come to terms with its obligations under the
Mutual Security Treaty in the event of actual of imminent hostilities in the Taiwan
Straits or in Korea. There is every indication that Japan has no definitive policy level
contingency plans for how it would respond in such circumstances. Nor has Japan
publicly articulated a policy clarifying its position in the event the dispute over
ownership and control in the South China Sea sharpens. This despite the fact that
Japan is more dependent than any other country on the seaborne commerce that
flows north and south through the South China Sea.
Nevertheless, the summit declaration produced by the Clinton-Hashimoto talks and
the U.S. Japan agreement to adjuct the U.S. military presence on Okinawa mark an
important consolidation of the two nation's alliance -- which remains the lynchpin of
East Asian security.
China
China poses the most difficult of international security challenges, a new great
power on the rise. Three times in the last century the world has faced this
82
phenomenon -- with German, Russia and Japan -- with catastrophic results on each
occasion. Under the best of circumstances, adjusting to the emergence of a new
great power places huge strains on the existing international system and poses a
major challenge to established powers. If recent history is any guide, the new power
will be fired by a combination of great ambitions, powerful resentments, and fervent
nationalism that, under the best of circumstances, make it difficult to live with. China
appears to be no exception.
No government draws from a deeper well of national pride and resentment than
does the Chinese. With 5000 years of contiguous history -- much of it as the most
technically advanced and economically productive society on earth -- they are the
inheritors of the Middle Kingdom, the self-perceived apogee of human civilization. But
they are also the inheritors of a century and a half of humiliation and subservience at
the hands of European and then Japanese imperialists. When Mao Tse-tung entered
Beijing at the head of the triumphant Red Army, his first words to the populace were:
"China has stood up!" Grievance and grandeur are a potent combination.
A galaxy of other, related, characteristics make China a problemmatic new
presence on the international scene. Culturally remote from the established Western
centers of international power, China's leadership is also unusually isolated and
parochial. This has been true for most of the Party's history, but in the past there
have been a few leaders with remarkable cosmopolitan skills and imagination, notably
the peerless Chou En-lai and Deng Xiaoping. But not now. It is as if the bloodletting
in Tienanmen killed more than the young people in the Square that night.
Parochialism is compounded by vulnerability. The Chinese leadership presents a
paradoxical picture -- astride a rising colossus but fearful for their future. They cling to
an ideology that is politically moribund; they surely know that they have little popular
support. The West embodies ideas -- democracy, freedom, individual enterprise --
that threaten their hold on power. Correctly they identify the U.S. as a source of
subversive influences and American talk of "peaceful evolution" as little short of a
strategy for the overthrow of the regime. Look at the former Soviet Empire.
The result is two-fold; a virulent resentment toward the West in general and the
U.S. in particular and a strident embrace of a jingoistic nationalism. That nationalism
83
has one further characteristic that compounds the problem. The history of Chinese
thinking about politics -- the Confucian value system -- is one of heirarchy. The
family, the village, the province, the empire are ruled from the top -- benevolently but
not democratically. The same applies to China's relationship with non-Chinese
peoples. There is no relationship of equals; there is the Celestial Kingdom and less-
civilized barbarians. When the empire collapsed, it was replaced by a new system of
dominance and subservience, colonialism. It is not surprising that as China regains its
strength, its neighbors in Asia see emerging hints of a Middle Kingdom mindset alien
to sovereign relations among equals.
All of this come together, in a sense, in the Taiwan Straits. The nationalist drive to
complete the unification of the homeland, the anger at foreign intervention, the fear of
the democratic transition undenway on Taiwan, and the prideful demonstration of a
growing military capability.
What it all adds up to is perhaps obvious. The reemergence of China is a seminal
development in international affairs and one that will pose a basic challenge to the
fabric of security in East Asia. More specifically, how to deal with China is a
conumdrum high on the policy agenda in Tokyo and Seoul, not to mention Taipei.
The recent events in the Taiwan Straits have given a new urgency to this concern.
If confrontation with China is viewed as a serious negative for U.S. policy, then
admitting President Lee Teng-hui to visit the U.S. last year was mistake. It is
important to understand that the status quo that has prevailed in the Taiwan Straits for
nearly five decades serves the interests of all parties, especially Taiwan. The
declaratory support for one China, but the de factor autonomy of Taiwan and the
ambiguities surrounding the degree and terms of U.S. association with Taiwan has
allowed all three parties to live and let live despite a fundamental clash of interests
and views. But Taiwan, unwisely, has become a revisionist influence in this situation.
By pressing for overt, politically potent symbols of international legitimacy, Taiwan
forced Beijing's hand. The resulting crisis ended up forcing America's hand as well
when two aircraft carriers were moved near Taiwan. Where formerly there was a
question what the U.S. would do if Taiwan was threatened, there is no longer. The
veil of ambiguity has been badly torn and it may be impossible to stitch it back up.
84
The result is a sharpened confrontation in the Straits that serves noone's real
interests.
In the case of Korea, China is playing a more subtle game. But agan, China has
been, up to the present, a basically status quo power. China does not want conflict
on the Peninsula -- hence Beijing's cooperation in negotiating the Framework
Agreement freezing Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program and its public statements
opposing North Korea's heavy-handed efforts to disrupt continued implementation of
the 1953 Armistice. A divided Korean Peninsula with a Communist buffer state
against China's border is consistent with China's strategic interests in the short and
medium term. But again, the status quo is eroding. The potential disintegration --
whether with a bang or a whimper -- of North Korea alarms Beijing. China has moved
to protect its interests in the event of a unification of the Peninsula by normalizing
relations with the South (over angry cries of betrayal from the North) in 1992. At the
same time, they have maintained ties with the North. It is important, however, for both
the U.S. and the R.O.K. to realize that if Korea is unified, China's ultimate objective
will be to exclude any outside power, including the U.S., from a security role on the
Peninsula. If Seoul wants, as it presently insists, to retain a U.S. military presence
after unification, there will be a fundamental clash of interests and policy with China.
In the interim the U.S. and South Korea share a basic interest in working to overcome
China's hegemonic impulses and integrate China into the existing political and security
structure of East Asia. Both also have a shared interest in persuading Taiwan to be
as nonprovocative as possible, consistent with its survival, toward Beijing.
Korea
Certitudes are hard, perhaps impossible, to come by when assessing North Korea.
One fundamental thing that can be said with some confidence, however, is that the
nearly five decade contest for supremacy beween the two Korean states is over.
There can be no doubt that a unified Korea will be ruled from Seoul, not Pyongyang.
As one Korean analyst put it: "The system in North Korea is already dead; it is living
beyond death." Having said that, it must also be said that noone can know when or
how this outcome will be reached. There are simply too many unknowns and too
many variables. The best prediction is that the experts will probably be surprised by
85
events. A prestigious international conference of German specialists met in a divided
Berlin in 1989 to assess the future of the East German state. The consensus was
that in perhaps ten years the GDR would evolve toward a more democratic model. A
month later the Wall came down and East Germany was history.
The forces that are impelling change on the Peninsula are largely beyond North
Korea's control. The Pyongyang regime is conservative to the point of stasis and
would, if it could, keep Korea frozen in amber circa 1960. Instead, three profound
changes are at work. First, the end of the Cold War destroyed the international
communist support structure that sustained Kim ll-sung's hermit kingdom. Russia
abrogated its defense treaty and China ended its economic aid and concessionary
sales to the DPRK. Second, the South Korean economy has achieved spectacular
sustained economic growth. Third, North Korea has experienced an almost
comparable economic failure with six straight year of declining GNP. Today the output
of the North Korean economy is only one-half to two-thirds of what is was in 1990 -
when it was already very poor. The result has been a remorseless shift in the
fundamental balance of power on the Peninsula toward the South with a comparable
grovilh in Seoul's ambition to dictate ultimate outcomes there.
North Korea's recent provocative challenge to the Armistice agreements covering
the DMZ is almost certainly an attempt to escape the box it is in by inducing the U.S.
to establish regular official contact with Pyongyang leading to a normalization of
relations. The North Korean leadership has apparently become convinced that their
future and their salvation lies in Washington. Why? Because the U.S. is seen as the
only power capable of controlling the South and ultimately protecting the North against
the shift in peninsular power. Ties to America would presumably open the doors to
foreign aid and investment and could save Pyongyang from its home-made economic
disaster. Why not turn to China, instead? Because China cannot control Seoul ~ or
Tokyo. North Korea's actions in the DMZ are not simply a tactical ploy, but are part of
a strategic plan aimed at regime survival.
The unification scenarios in current favor among Korea analysts use an aircraft
analogy. The first, a "soft landing" scenario invisions a negotiated outcome and
peaceful takeover by Seoul. The business metaphor would be a merger with Seoul
86
taking over full ownership of the resulting unified enterprise. It is the most attractive
unification scenario and would certainly enjoy popular support on both sides of the
38th Parallel -- and it is within the power of the two Korean governments to effect.
Nevertheless, it is also the least likely outcome. There is nothing to suggest the
leadership in Pyongyang would ever countenance the loss of power and position --
and probably more -- that this would entail. The current criminal trials of South
Korea's two most recent leaders do not help in this regard. Nor is Korean political
culture with its aversion to compromise likely to foster a negotiated solution.
The obvious alternative is a "hard landing" scenario which might take at least two
forms: collapse and acquisition (the business analogy) or cataclysm, i.e. war. A
collapse scenario envisions some sort of implosion, e.g. food riots leading to a
disintegration of government authority or a factional infighting leading to a
fragmentation of the regime leadership. The alternative is a decision by a desperate
Pyongyang to launch an attack south. The result would certainly be suicidal; the
DPRK would be defeated and eliminated. But just as Hitler chose to take Germany
down with him rather than surrender, the leaders in the North might choose to inflict
as much damage on their enemies to the south as they can before their own demise.
The costs of such a scenario would be beyond calculation and would certainly include
heavy casualties among U.S. and R.O.K. forces and the Korean civilian population.
But even an implosion/acquisition scenario would involve huge cost associated with
absorbing and rebuilding the North. Although clearly the least desirable, many of the
closest observrrs of North Korea judge a hard landing in one form or another as the
most likely outcome.
A third major scenario is a "no landing" or muddle through possibility. This is
essentially a transition scenario that envisions an indefinite continuation of the DPRK
with a gradual evolution toward greater openess producing a regime perhaps similar to
the Park dictatorship that ruled South Korea in the 1960s.
While noone can predict which, if any, of these outcomes will occur, it is clearly
time for the U.S. and R.O.K. to begin systematic consultations designed to prepare
both governments to deal in a coordinated fashion with various unification
contingencies. The principal objective should be a policy capable of responding
87
effectively to surprise and one that attempts to influence events such that a soft
landing or no landing is made more likely and a hard landing less so.
Probably the one reality in Seoul that is easiest to underestimate in Washington is
the degree to suspicion bordering on paranoia in the South Korean government
concerning direct U.S. talks with North Korea. In this regard, the proposal agreed to
by President Cllinton and President Kim Yong-sam for quadripartite talks on the future
of the Peninsula -- involving the two Korean governments and the U.S. and China -- is
a very useful one. it would help assure that on the key issues of peace and security
there is no daylight between Seoul and Washington. At the same time it provides a
potentially important gesture toward Beijing offering them a seat at the table of what
could be very important negotiations. Much of China's resentment toward the U.S.
and the West more generally derives from a feeling that Beijing is being asked to
observe international rules and norms that they had no voice in creating. China is
also the one outside power, besides the U.S., that could influence the course and
modalities of unification if it chose to do so.
At the same time. South Korean officials must acknowledge that the U.S. has
global security concerns (notably missile sales) and bilateral concerns (notably
American remains from the Korean War) that require it to negotiate directly and
bilaterally with Pyongyang.
Conclusion
Throughout most of the brief post-Cold War period, it has been the prevailing view,
particularly concerning Asia, that economics has supplanted security as the priority of
policy. It has been the international counterpart of the Clinton campaign slogan, "It's
the economy, stupid!"
But events of recent months have cast that verity into question. Missile tests and
military exercises in the Taiwan Straits, conflicting claims and maritime confrontations
in the South China Sea, and troop violations along the Korean DMZ against the
backdrop of a gathering deathwatch regarding North Korea -- all have suddenly
pushed military security back to the fore. Throughout much of East Asia, China is a
concern with its growing strength and uncertain intentions.
The summit meetings and consultations of this week will stand as the historical
88
punctuation on the reemergence of security priorities and with it the renewed salience
of the U.S. alliances with Japan and Korea.
89
Tdday more than ever the eco-
nomic and poMtlcal rhythms of
the Asia-Pacific region affect our
national interests. Growing inter-
dependence with the economies of the re-
gion is altering the international security
landscape. The GNP of .Asian countries
presently amounts to a quarter of global
GNP and may climb to half by the middle of
the ne,\t century. Meanwhile. American jobs
tied to the region's economy will double
from 3 to 6 million in the ne.xt five years.
Japan and Chma are the world's second and
third largest economies, while India shows
great potential. New concentrations of
Asia-Pacific
By HANS BINNENDIJK an^. i^:.!^
PATRICK M,'^ CRONIN
w?afm*have led some nations of the region
b rede|ine their contacts around the world,
rosperity and security wiU be increas-
;?parable from^thH^ifeiamic growth.
" ;<e of wlaespjSMr^ustaified eco-
nomic (development ttjeregion.ts relatively
Gloomy p^edictigns'^^^ainjne
Wtf, and stat^alf
_ ^Jo'lVsia. Des{Jne'"^
scite conflict therCt
Strategically, the interests of the major
powers intersect in Kast Asia. The subregion
is the ne\us of three of five permanent
members of the U.N. Security Council
(China, Russia, and the United States), and
Japan is a leading aspirant for that status,
for the moment, none of these major pow-
ers sees the others as a threat. Historical and
contemporary trends, however, as well as the
virtual absence of regional security institu-
tions, suggest that a long-term great power
concert is far from certain, particularly if
economic fortunes change. China is a rising
power, at once eager to continue its eco-
nomic boom and ultrasensitive to questions
of sovereignty. Russia is a declining
power whose weakness, ironically,
poses a greater threat to the region than
Its military strength. Japan is a matur-
ing industrial democracy still defining
its identity within the international se-
curity realm. The United States remains
the preeminent guarantor of regional
stability, yet alone it lacks the resources .
to contend with the entire region. ^
Adding these strategic factors to Asia's.^
economic dynamism, many analysts*''
view the region as the global crossroads
of the next century. One thing seems
certain: the United States will face
greater competition and expend much
effort to win the cooperation of other
major power centers in the region.
At the same time, new patterns of
cftrnpetition are eme^ng.Chlna's economic
growth and opa^iie militaiy modemizatlc>|l
set the stage (otttie rise of a m^jor regioft^
power. Japan will retalri its security relations
flf|^.the United Statfc.buf jnaf Inch toward
greater autonomy. IncUa appears ready to
buttress its ambitions by Rinded Involve-
In the global ecOndtny: The Korean
pepfnsula seeni|-"llkely to ^asaSafvlded for
c., ^J^etime, although It wlU eVentually unite
') pte^'f^p^'a formidable power^'Moreoyer^ the
jftembers of ASEAN promise to g'row in|
ifjfture and potenfial, inakijijg.lt inaeasfhglyi
necessary to engage sfich countries a$ In-
jgf „ ..-dgiiesia and Malaysia ^ . ^.^ «. .,
"^^ "■ 'intense competitlQp cdwid lead to re-.
S.^ gKina] conflirt^sla has]j^^Tines based on
*■"' hjjtorical diffSences: teI|1torial claims in_the
Seutt China S'carthe future swj^s of "ftlv^an.
90
.'X^i
China's boundary disputes with India and
Russia, the question of Korean unification,
friction between India and Pakistan, turmoil
in Cambodia, and Japan's quarrel with Rus-
sia over the Kuril Islands. Other conflicts
could arise from economic competition, par-
ticularly in Northeast Asia While there is no
Bosnia in Asia, many territorial, maritime,
and resource disputes could escalate. In Eu-
rope, NATO has weathered the discord over
■ , the violent breakup of the former Yu-
• t^jU goslavia. In Asia, it is not clear that Amer-
i<<^K' ica's key alliance with Japan is equal to that
level of dfvergeihce, and thus putting our
compact with Japan on a solid footing for
the next century must be a national priority.
At the same time, the United States must
ensure that its security relations with South
Korea withstand the lingering challenge
posed byiJJprth Korea's nuclear and conven-
tional, prograrns and, on the other hand, a
- f sudden rush to-
ward reunifica-
tion. In the short
, term„ Washington
rtiust continue to
ensiiie full imple-
mentation of the
October 21, 1994
Agreed Frame-
•wprk. Jh it en-
dures, this accord
will tietp focus
more attention on
■^ .. wotking with
-.Seoul to provide a 'isoft lanSing" for Pyong-
ijTing as well js on the future of the Korea
insula within the region.
Z Moreover, we must Sitegrate Qhina Into
th regional and intefnstional systems,
re is no jnore critical security task than
gaging tnt nation in Ifer^arency and
nfidenceciuilding meafirfi to itt&ease
great pov\*-iM)Operation in Vegloftail and
global issues. ftrritorial questions remain a
concern, giv|n that actions taken with re-
gard to Taiwan could bring China and Amer-
ica into confrontation Similarly, the way in
which China views the use of force and,
conversely, its willingness to seek peaceful
resolution of other territorial and resource
disputes will be pivotal to a regional stability
upon which to found continuing economic
growth and prosperity.
.\sian states have reached an unspoken
consensus that stability is essential in coping
with domestic issues that may take years to
resolve. In this conte.\t, all can agree that
there is little to be gained — and much to
lose — by altering the status quo. As Asia
moves through this transitional period, a
basis for a new regional security order will
emerge. This order will inevitably reflect the
aspirations and strengths of major Asian
powers. Our challenge is to secure stability,
and by doing so to secure our own interests.
The keys to this task will be severalfold:
to recast our alliance with Japan in post-Cold
War terms and put it on a firm foundation
for the next century; strengthen our alliance
with the Republic of Korea to bolster deter-
rence in the short run and provide long-term
regional support; engage China in ways that
link it to regional and international systems;
promote ties with South Asia; advance multi-
lateral institutions where they can make a
difference (as in Northeast Asia); further rela-
tions with other regional allies, particularly
Australia, our southern anchor; develop our
relations with the dynamic states of South-
east Asia; and maintain a credible overseas
presence both to reassure the region and to
be ready for rapid crisis response. ^
Notwithstanding a more vibrant multi-
lateral and regional security architecture, an
important role remains for the Armed Forces.
Even if a concert of great powers can be
achieved and works well — both big i/js— the
United States will have a key part in under-
pinning that stability, providing balance for
regional powers, responding to aggressive
middle powers, containing chaos from failed
states, or building coherent regional support
for contingencies in other parts of the world.
If we are willing to adjust alliance relation-
ships and able to use political and economic
relations wisely, our forces will continue to be
welcomed as agents of peace and stability. JQ
Spring 1995 ,/ JFQ
91
NATIOWIAL DEFEWISE vljNlVEBlSlTY
Strategic Forum
Institute for National Strategic Studies number si, November 1995
Unifying U.S. Policy on Japan
by Patrick M. Cronin and Ezra F. Vogel
Conclusions:
• The U.S.-Japan relationship may be the most
important bilateral relationship in the world.
• But the strains of acrimonious trade negohations
and troubles related to U.S. bases in Okinawa have
reduced public support on both sides for a strength-
ened security relationship.
• So the United States must develop an integrated
and coherent strategy toward Japan (1) to encourage
the Japanese to assume a more responsible interna-
tional security position, (2) to discourage Japan from
leaving a strong American alliance, and (3) to work
with America in providing leadership in the Pacific
and, by extension, throughout the world.
Toward a New Joint Security Declaration
On the eve of a bilateral summit meeting, the furor
over the alleged rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by
American servicemen is catalyzing public scrutinty of
the U.S. military forces in Japan. The U.S. government
has issued high-level apologies and taken steps to pre-
vent the recurrence of such incidents. If Japanese polit-
ical leadership is reticent, the anti-U.S. base sentiment
could become a larger anti-Mutual Security Treaty
movement. Although U.S. Armed Forces will have to
show increased awareness of their impact on local com-
munities, the fact remains that much of the Okinawan
opposition is actually aimed at the Government of Japan
in Tokyo. A more basic structural issue concerns eco-
nomic disputes and the need to balance and integrate
economic and security interests and policies.
Barring a last-minute crisis, the President of the
Uruted States and the Prime Minister of Japan will issue
a joint security declaration in Tokyo in November, cul-
minating a year of diligent alliance management by
American defense officials. Yet only a few montfis ago,
U.S. trade officials had been tfu'eatening economic sanc-
tions, because of Japan's dilatory efforts to open its mar-
kets to the outside world and lower its record trade sur-
plus with the United States. The acrimony arising from
those trade negotiations has raised three questions:
(1) Will Americans and Japanese continue to support a
defense relationship despite strained trade disputes?
(2) Will Japan maintain confidence in the relationship
even as leading American editorial writers and acade-
mics disparage public support for it or advocate using it
as a bargaining chip to strengthen leverage in trade
negotiahons?
(3) Will Americans support the alliance despite
Japanese reluctance to open their markets further or to
risk deploying their military forces to danger zones?
During the Cold War, the U.S. goverrunent built a
fire wall between trade and security issues that prevent-
ed trade disputes from interfering with the bedrock
security relationship. That fire wall has disappeared,
and both Democratic and Republican presidents have
had trouble setting clear guidelines to balance security
and economic interests.
The problem of balancing U.S. economic and securi-
ty interests with Japan is far more acute and involves
much higher stakes than with other natior\s. Japan has
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied in this paper are solely those ol the author and do not neces-
sarily represent the views of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or
any otfier government agency.
92
Institute for National Strategic Studies
Stbateqic Forum #51, November 1995
the second largest economy in the world. Calculated at
100 yen to the dollar, Japan's GNP last year was rough-
ly $5 trillion to America's $7 trillion. While GNP may
not be an accurate measure of the purchasing power of
the Japanese people, it is a good indicator of the nation's
capacity to buy things around the world Former
Ambassador Mike Mansfield's conclusion, "The U.S.-
Japan relationship is the most important bilateral rela-
tionship in the world," has been ratified by recent de-
velopments. If the two wealthiest democracies — which
share many common interests in regional and global
affairs — carmot align their policies, then one wonders
how the intcrnahonal community can avoid clipping
into Hobbesian anarchy. The United States m^l^t pro-
duce an integrated strategy toward Japan and devise
appropriate policies and political structures to realize it.
The following discussion argues against coercive
linkage and suggests a four-part plan for comprehen-
sive management of the U.S. -Japanese relationship. It
advances a strategy that would encourage Japan to
accept more responsibility for the course of internation-
al affairs, and to become a stalwart participant in and
defender of an open, free-trading system. And it would
assure U.S. cooperation with Japan to achieve its
aiuiounced goals of playing a broader role in reinforcing
regional and global stability.
Such a strategy will not be easy to implement. Japan
is now ruled by a fragile political coalition that makes it
difficult to take bold initiatives, and internal cleavages
over how many of its troops Japan should contribute to
resolve international conflicts run deep. But the failure
to enunciate a lucid overall strategic approach perpetu-
ates an ambiguity that erodes confidence in American
leadership and invites the dismantling of the existing
system without offering a palatable or realistic alterna-
tive. As Asian nations grow stronger economically,
polihcally, and militarily, American leaders must grasp
the significance of an integrated and consistent strategy
toward Japan, not just for the results it can produce I'is-
a-vis Japan itself, but for the impact such a policy can
have on America's standing throughout the region.
The Case Against Coercive Linkage
Critics of American poUcy who have called for end-
ing the presence of U.S. troops and bases in East Asia,
particularly in Japan and South Korea, give a false
impression to some in Asia that Washington could soon
abandon or fundamentally decrease its commitments to
stability inAsia. Ted Carpenter of the Cato Ir\stitute has
been the most vocal ad\ocate of such a retrenchment.
Earlier this year, in the pages of Foreign Affairs,
Chalmers Johnson urged bartering U.S. security assets
for entry into Japanese markets and maintaining Japan
in a "protectorate status." The Asian scholar argued
that maintaining a U.S. conunitment to Japan and other
countrie'i of the region is an anachronistic strategy that
provides .America's chief economic competitors a free
ride on defense. In addition, Thomas Friedman of The
Neiu York Times has indirectly criticized the ongoing
U.S.-Japan Security Dialogue by referring to "brain
dead" Pentagon officials who persist in pursuing strong
security ties despite trade frictions.
These and other detractors favor reversing the Cold
War paradigm by placing economic competition first in
the relationship and giving short shrift to security con-
cerns. Unfortunately, their approach could jeopardize
America's bilateral alliance with Japan, regional stabili-
ty, and U.S. regional ir^fluence. Clarity of policy must
not come at the expense of national interests.
The notion of leveraging our security clout for eco-
nomic advantage plays into the hands of Japanese pro-
ponents of a rrulitary capability independent of the
United States They believe that the United States is a
rapidly declining great power, beset by domestic ills, a
huge deficit, glaring trade problems, and a slashed
defense budget. They view the abrupt U.S. withdrawal
from the Philippines as presaging a regional withdraw-
al of America's military force. They caused the authors
of a blue-ribbon panel report to the prime minister to
recommend hedgmg their deferise options in a new
defense outline Although the August 1994 report reiter-
ated the centrality of the bilateral alliance, the scope
given Japan's autonomous capabilities and multilateral
forums had clearly been staked out.
A similar cycle occurred about 25 years ago in the
waning days of the Vietnam War, after President Nixon
had enunciated the Guam Doctrine calling for the U.S.
military role be limited to nuclear, naval and air forces
rather than troops on the ground. Some witfun Japan,
including then-Defense Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone,
About the Authors
Ezra F. Vogel is Director of the Fairbanks Center and Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard
University; he recently returned to his post after serving two years as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia.
Patrick M. Cronin is a senior fellow and Asian team leader at the Institute for National Strategic Studies. For more
information call Dr Cronin at (202) 287-9219. fax at (202) 287-9475, or Internet e-mail to; CRONINP@NDU. EDU.
93
Strategic Fohum #51, November 1995
Institute for National Strategic Studies
Page 3
seized the oppDrtunity to press lor a far more offensive
and autonomous military capability. Tfiat movement
failed, hovi'ever, and even closer defense collaboration
followed, as manifested in ttie 1976 National Defense
Program Outline, the 1978 Defense Guidelines, and the
1981 commitment to emphasize the role of the Self-
Defense Forces in patrolling sea lanes, air defense, and
anti-submarine warfare surveillance and sanitization.
In short, it produced defensi\e-oriented actioas that
supported US. military strategy in the event of a major
war with the Soviet Union. Today, a policy of coercive
lirOcage by the United States would support certain
deleterious trends in Japan toward a military policy
more independent of America/or /rar timt it could not rely
upon tlw United States as a partner. Although alliances are
built on shared interests, not friendships, an effective
security partnership requires a high degree of trust and
commitment. Using the security relationship as leverage
to gain economic concessions is likely to cause Japan to
move away from the United States as a military partner
This would lead to polarization in Japanese politics. It
would in turn limit U.S. influence in an increasingly
powerful region of the world, trigger Japan's neighbors
into enlarging their defense programs, stunt the growth
of a more mterdependent Pacific community, and actu-
ally undercut Japan's own security.
Some critics contend that the threat of withdrawal of
American troops would force Japan to accept more
responsibility for its own military affairs. But as
Ambassador Hisahiko Okazaki has pointed out, when
Japan has been most firmly engaged in an alliance with
either Great Britain or the United States, it has rein-
forced democratic tendencies witfun Japan; but when it
has acted independently of these alliances, it has rein-
forced powerful nationalistic, inward-looking treads. A
tf\reat of withdrawal of the American commitment to
Japan could strengthen the forces of Japanese ultrana-
tionalism and trigger hostile reactions by China and
other regional neighbors. So a withdrawal of American
comnutment is likely to further destabilize relations. A
Japan detached from a strong American alliance is like-
ly to intensify the rivalries between China and Japan
and to accelerate the risk of an arms race in Northeast
Asia. Few in Asia would see a rupture in the U.S. -Japan
security alliance as anything else but the cessation of
decades of stability and prosperity throughout the Asia-
Pacific region.
It is unfair to characterize any commitment to retain
American forces in Asia at their current levels as ossi-
fied, as some have done. The situation confronting
America's former Cold War allies in Europe is dramati-
cally different. In particular Germany, France, Britain,
and other countries deal with a declining Russia; more-
over, they enjoy well-established and overlapping insti-
tutions and mechanisms for security cooperation, pre-
ventative diplomacy and crisis management. Japan and
South Korea, as well as other U.S. allies in Southeast
Asia and Oceania, however, face the uncertainty of an
ascendant China while they have only fledgling region-
al or subregional security mechanisms. While the
United States and Japan should not impose a new
regional framework over the rest of Asia, no regional
framework could emerge from the instability that
would attend the end of this bilateral relationsfiip.
Force presence is hardly obsolete for a second rea-
son. During the Cold War, U.S. forward presence had
been geared toward a Central Front contingency, with
forces in Asia designed primarily to hold the line until
forces in the Atlantic theater could "swing" to their
assistance. Yet, U.S. force levels in Asia, ashore and
afloat, after the Cold War have been reduced about one-
third to approximately 100,000, including some 48,000
in Japan. Given that Asia will become the next century's
political, economic, technological and possibly military
locus of power, maintaining that forward presence is
clearly in America's national interest. Because Japan
offers unprecedented levels of assistance — some $25 bil-
lion pledged in direct and indirect host nahon support
over the next 5 years — it is cheaper to keep our forces
based in Japan than to bring them home. Dismantling
them altogether might save money, but it would be a
Pyrrhic victory in that America's influence in the region
would fade at the very moment in history when the
global center of gravity was shifting from the Atlantic to
the Pacific and Indian Ocear\s.
The foregoing criticisms of the security relationship
do not represent either mainstream U.S. views or sup-
port U.S. long-term interests. Nor do they reflect a real-
istic assessment of developments in Asia. The colossal
Soviet submarine and air threat has receded. Now,
issues such as North Korea, UN peacekeeping, the pro-
liferation of weapons of mass destruction, and numer-
ous border clashes are important security concerns.
Toward Comprehensive Management
of the Japan Relationship
Since 1945, Japan has achieved unprecedented eco-
nomic growth and it has forged a growing global politi-
cal role since 1989. Until Japan holds its first election
under its new election rules (likely to occur early in
1996), it will be difficult for the Japanese government to
take major steps to alter the overall international rela-
tionship and to make major changes in Japanese domes-
tic poUcy. A well-integrated American strategy now
could be effective if coordinated with Japanese officials,
politicians, and opir\ion-makers to prepare for the time
when a new government in Japan can make larger deci-
sions. Such a strategy would rest on four pillars:
94
Page 4
Institute for National Strategic Studies
STSATiQlC FOflUM #51. NOVEMBER 1995
1) A high-level commitment to a positive overall
bilateral relationship. This requires greater efforts by
senior American leaders to understand Japan and a
deeper effort at top levels to manage the overall rela-
tionsfiip. The November summit is a positive step, but
persistent and prolonged follow-through will be needed
if the bilateral partnership is to fulfill its potential.
2) A reaffirmation of a broad bipartisan commitment
to the relationship. Both major parties have a common
interest in preserving Asian stability and prosperity, and
that stability is in turn founded on the U.S.-Japan
alliance. The level of financial comnutment required to
maintain that stability is relatively minor compared to
the gains of maintaining stability. We carmot maintain
the trust required for a security relationship by bargain-
ing the security relationship as a lever in trade negotia-
tions. Above all, the relahonship should not become an
issue for opportunistic politicians seeking high office.
3) A determination not to abstain from tough bar-
gaining, including the threat of trade sanctions, ivhen
our trade interests require draconian efforts. As long as
we maintain a firm overall relationship with Japan we
can afford to be forthright in our pursuit of specific
trade goals. At the same time, more consideration needs
to be given about how to work with allies in Japan and
to formulate our position on trade matters so that it
strengthens our base of support for our position in
Japan. We need to devote more resources to monitoring
the results of earlier trade agreements as a basis for pres-
suring for miplementation. We need to devote a higher
proportion of our achvities, as Australia and South
Korea do, to market development and positive trade
promotion in Japan. We also need closer coordination
between our efforts to open markets and promote trade
4) A decision to reorganize the management of rela-
tions with Japan. During the latter decades of the Cold
War, external policy was made by the State Department
or the National Security Council. Post-Cold War confu-
sion has led to the bifurcation of U.S. defense and eco-
non\ic policies, and the State Department has not been
granted a crystalline mandate to adjudicate differences
among Executive Branch agencies. One solution would
be for an expanded National Security Council that deals
with comprehensive military and economic security.
For the president to preside over a less ambiguous U.S.
foreign policy either on Japan or any other country, it is
essential to have an overriding body — whether in the
White House or the State Department — that can make
overall policy and resolve competing goverrunent prior-
ities.
The overall goal of America's Japan policy should
be to encourage the world's second largest economy to
continue to play an important role in maintaining the
security of Asia, providing aid and assistance to devel-
oping countries, and strengthening international and
multilateral institutions. A unified U.S. strategy toward
Japan will have a more realistic chance of achieving
these objectives than the conflicting approaches that
ha\'e heretofore marked U.S. post-Cold War policy.
Recommendations:
• The United States should resist any temptation to
end the U.S. military presence in Japan and Korea or
barter U.S. security assets for entry into Japanese
markets.
• The Uiuted States should enunciate a strategy
clear and coherent enough that Japan might choose
to abandon any hedging strategy that anticipates a
dwindling U.S. commitment in the region.
• The new strategy requires a bipartisan, long-term
commitment free of momentary political ambition.
• The new strategy requires a more powerful State
Department or an expanded National Security
Council with the authority to resolve policy differ-
ences among competing government agencies and
speak with one unambiguous voice on the U.S.-Japan
relationship; anytfiing less would encourage the
Japanese to question the reliability of the American
commitment.
The StraTEQIC Fonuy provides summaries of work by
members and guests of Ilie Institute for National Strategic
Studies and ttie National Defense University faculty Tfiese
include reports of original research, synopses of seminars and
conferences, the results of unclassified war games, and digests
of remarks by distinguished speakers
Editor - Jonathan W Pierce
j2Z
NDU Press publications concerning
natonal security include the Strategic
Forum, ttie McNair Paper monograph
senes, NDU Symposium proceedings,
and NDU Press books For intormatjon call (202)
475-1913, or DSN 335-1913 Our Home Page is
HTTP/AWWW NDU EDU Our Internet Web Server
is httpV/www ndu edu/cgi-bin/wais.pl
95
A Monthly Review of Contemporary Asian Affairs ■ University of California Press
Vol. XXXVI, No. 1, January 1996
A SURVEY OF ASIA IN 1995: PART I
■ The United States and Asia in 1995 • Jonathan
D. Pollack ■ China in 1995 • John Bryan Starr
■ Hong Kong in 1995 • Suzanne Pepper ■ Taiwan
in 1995 • HuNG-MAO Tien ■ Japan in 1995 •
Michael Blaker ■ South Korea in 1995 • B. C.
KoH ■ North Korea in 1995 • Samuel S. Kim ■
Vietnam in 1995 • Brantly Womack ■ Cambodia
in 1995 • Pierre P. Lizee ■ Laos in 1995 • Yves
BouRDET ■ Mongolia in 1995 • Sheldon R. Sever-
INGHAUS ■ Russia and Asia in 1995 • Tsuneo
Akaha ■
96
THE UNITED STATES AND ASIA
IN 1995
The Case of the Missing President
Jonathan D. Pollack
The past year was decidedly inauspicious for U.S. policy
in Asia. Despite renewed efforts to define a larger regional strategy, the Clin-
ton administration was repeatedly buffeted by major controversies and set-
backs. Some of the administration's difficulties were not foreseeable. In
September the arrest of tlirce American servicemen for involvement in the
brutal rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl provoked widespread dis-
content within Japan over the terms of the U.S. military presence, even if few
Japanese critics were prepared to question the broader relevance of the U.S.-
Japan alliance. But other worrisome developments — in particular, a serious
deterioration in the U.S. -China relationship — seemed attributable in signifi-
cant measure to major weaknesses in the U.S. policy-making machinery, be-
ginning with a minimally engaged American president.
A splintered decision-making process driven primarily by issues of the mo-
ment; the absence of sustained high level attention to Asia on the part of the
president and his senior foreign policy advisers; and President Clinton's pre-
occupation with U.S. domestic politics (accentuated further by the midterm
election of Republican majorities in both houses of Congress) all stymied
development of a coherent foreign policy strategy for Asia. Although there
were some important accomplishments — in particular, the establishment of
full diplomatic relations with Vietnam — the overall record seemed very
mixed, and elicited growing concerns within the region about the future pros-
pects for U.S. leadership, especially with the approach of another presidential
election campaign.
.^^_— — _— -__ Jonathan D. Pollack is Senior Advisor for International Policy at
RAND, Santa Monica, California. The opinions in this paper ore the author's own, and should
not be aiiribuicd to RAND or any of its governmental sponsors.
© 1996 by The Regents of the University of California
1
97
2 ASIAN SURVEY. VOL XXXVl. NO. 1, JANUARY 1996
• Two principal factors dominated regional concerns: the reversals in
America's relations with China and Japan, Asia's major powers; and the re-
peated lurching of U.S. attention from one set of policy issues to another.
Both problems suggested the absence of a coherent strategic concept and the
lack .of effective policy coordination at the top of the administration.
Although senior American officials in the areas of diplomacy, defense, and
commerce all asserted the region's very high priority in U.S. policy goals, the
absence of consistent or sustained presidential involvement diminished the
credibility of their declarations. In late November, President Clinton's last
minute, cancellation of a long-scheduled visit to Japan — -his sole trip to the
region planned for 1995 — epitomized America's reduced attention to Asia.
Although the cancellation was attributed to the president's budget battles
with";;he congressional leadership, it contrasted with his increased involve-
ment with Bosnia, the Middle East peace process, and Northern Ireland. The
comparison suggested to many regional. observers the president's unwilling-
ness,.tp expend substantial energy and political capital on ties with Asia, un-
dermining U.S. credibility and influence. in the process.
.For much of the summer and continuing into the fall, damage control was
the operative norm in U.S.-China relations, as escalating tensions over Tai-
wan,,trade, and human rights injected major uncertainties in bilateral ties. In
neither capital were senior leaders able or. willing to commit the political
resources needed to forestall a potentially very serious rupture in relations.
Difficulties with Japan, though different in tone and substance, were no less
consequential to regional perceptions of U.S. policy. Although American and
Japanese officials navigated the 50th anniversary of the end of the Pacific war
without serious incident, the broader tenor of relations, especially in the eco-
nomic arena, was uneasy. The ruling political coalition in Japan, though pre-
pared to reaffirm the centrality of the security relationship with Washington,
was too weak to put forward coherent policy alternatives, whether on trade
policy, or in response to the Okinawa incident.
The administration's continued emphasis on export promotion as a princi-
pal dimension of its foreign policy toward the region reflected the absence of
a larger. strategic concept.^ President Clinton had yet to achieve a satisfac-
tory, mutually reinforcmg balance among the political, economic, and secur-
ity components of U.S. regional strategy, and he remained seemingly
uninvolved in efforts to devise such a strategy. Although these circumstances
did not imply American disengagement, they suggested inattentiveness to re-
gional concerns at the highest levels of the U.S. government. As President
Clinton's third year in office neared completion, the expectations of numer-
I. Arthur J. Alexander, Sources of America's Asia Policy in the Clinton Administration
(Washington, D.C.: Japan Economic Institute Report, April 1995).
98
THH UNITED STATES AND ASIA IN 1995 3
ous Asian states for a close and confident relationship with the United Stales
had not materialized.
Dealing with an Ascendant China
The least steady major power relationship in international politics over the
past year was that between the United States and China. During 1994, V/ash-
ington and Beijing had achieved appreciable headway in bilateral relations.
Defined by Washington as a policy of "comprehensive engagement," the ma-
jor pieces of this policy seemed largely in place at the onset of 1995: the
United States had "delinked" from Beijing's human rights policies the annual
recertification process for most favored nation (MFN) trading staUis for
China; the military-to-military relationship had been reestablished after a
post-Tianamnen hiaUis; sanctions imposed on China for missile sales to Paki-
stan'had been removed; and political relations appeared to be progressing,
albeit unevenly.
This headway proved fleeting. Chinese assertiveness and self-confidence,
befitting the country's rapid economic growth and enhanced regional promi-
nence, were counterbalanced by a defensive, reactive nationalism, much of it
directed against the United States. This seeming paradox reflected internal
leadership divisions as Chma approached the passing of paramount leader
Deng Xiaoping. Even as Party leader and State President Jiang Zemin solidi-
fied his claim as Deng's successor, he did not display a self-confident or
certain grasp on power or policy.
Jiang also remained dissatisfied with Beijing's relations with Washington.
In earlier meetings with President Clinton, the two leaders failed to establish
an easy interpersonal relationship, but Jiang saw the prospect of improved
Sino- American relations as strengthening his claim to the top power position.
In particular, he conveyed a desire that the U.S. acknowledge his accession to
top leadership and more generally signal that it viewed China as a legitimate
major power. Toward this end, Jiang repeatedly urged a Clinton visit to Bei-
jing, a full-scale Chinese state visit to Washington, or both.
Jiang got neither. The mushrooming of the U.S. trade deficit with Bei-
jmg — according to U.S. data, $30 billion in 1994 and estimated to reach $38
billion in 1995 — placed the terms of trade high on the U.S.-Cliina policy
agenda.-^ The United States also greatly increased pressures on China to ad-
dress intellectual property rights issues, raised most tangibly by production of
contraband compact disks at factories in southern China. Despite a March
agreement in which China pledged a crackdown on pirating activities, in Oc-
tober U.S. Special Trade Representative Mickey Kantor renewed accusations
of Chinese failure to enforce fiiUy the agreement. Although Kantor diplomal-
2. "The Numbers Game," Economist, October 14, 1995, p. 38.
99
4 ASIAN SURVEY. VOL. XXXVI. NO. 1, JANUARY 1996
cally referred to the "inconsistencies" in Chinese enforcement policy, he also
vamed that China's failure to carry out all provisions on a tunely basis would
)rompt additional U.S. responses — a thinly veiled reference to the imposition
)f trade sanctions. For good measure, the Clinton administration insisted that
t, would continue to block China's entry into the World Trade Organization
WTO), the successor organization to the GATT, unless China adopted more
ransparent regulations governing trade,, investment, and protection of intel-
ectual^property rights. ;. .^ ' ■'
•';In the face of such developments, the prevailing weight of leadership opin-
Dn in -Beijing had already begun to turn against closer relations with the
Jnited States. For example, even though. Washington had lowered the vol-
me on human rights disputes, Beijing refused to conciliate the U.S. on par-
cularly, sensitive individual cases. A growing chorus of views treated the
Jnited. States as a malign influence seeking to divide, weaken, and contain
;hina. .These characterizations spoke much more to Chinese leadership poli-
os, .than" to the reality of U.S. policy: .'..the Chinese dwelt on a containment
lategy far more than American officials. ; To the Clinton administration, the
Chinese J. seemed unprepared to ; accommodate • the . United States, despite
/ashington's efforts at engagement. .->;^'^ . ^ ■,' ^
But the largest firestorms were provoked by developments in Taiwan-U.S.
ilations. During 1994 there had been a modest upgrading of U.S. relations
n\h Taiwan, prompting Chinese suspicions of an erosion in the U.S. com-
litment to a one-China policy. In the early months of 1995, Taiwan's lead-
rship.was eager to heighten its international visibility and capitalize on the
emocratization of the island's politics, drawing on the sympathies of newly
iected Republicans and long-cultivated ties with Democrats. In early May,
oth houses of Congress passed a near unanimous but nonbinding resolution
allingon the administration to issue a. visa for Taiwan President Lee Teng-
■ui to attend a reunion at his alma mater, Cornell University. The State De-
artment initially insisted that it would resist such pressures, fearing the con-
equences for the- Sino-American relationship. Within a matter of days,
.owever, President Clinton — in direct contravention of the stipulations of the
dministration's Taiwan PoUcy Review and the repeated assurances from se-
ior: American diplomats to their Chinese counterparts — decided to switch
atherithan fight. The May '22 'announcement on issuing a visa for Lee —
bough depicted by the State Department as a private, unofficial visit — was
'aipei's biggest breakthrough with .Washington since, the diplomatic de-
ecognition of late 1978. Beijing's initial response was to interrupt high-level
lilitary contacts, including indefinite. postponement of the impending visit of
)efense Minister Chi Haotian; working-level discussions on ballistic missile
roliferation were also canceled.
100
THE UNITED STATES AND ASIA IN 1995 5
By the time of Lcc's visit in early June, leaders in Beijing had begun to
assess their options more fully. Li Daoyu, China's ambassador to the United
States, was called home for consultations, with no commitment to his possi-
ble return. Underscoring Chinese displeasure, officials in Beijing refused to
consent to the appointment of former Tennessee Senator James Sasser as U.S.
ambassador to Beijing, succeeding J. Stapleton Roy. Other important policy
shifts loomed, as more conservative foreign policy voices, disgruntled by the
failure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to anticipate the Lee visa, assumed
a far harsher stance toward the United States. Despite American insistence
that the Lee visit did not reflect a shift in policy, Chinese commentaries ac-
cused the U.S. of orchestrating the Lee visit for its own purposes, all as part
of a supposed containment strategy designed to deny China its rightful status
as a major power.
Even allowing for overheated rhetoric, the center of gravity Lq Chinese
foreign policy had clearly shifted, with the voices of restramt unable to de-
fend a policy of engagement with the United States. As if to underscore
China's diminished stake in relations with the U.S., public security forces in
early July detained and arrested "Wu Hongda (Harry Wu), a long-time pris-
oner in the Chinese labor camp system but now a U.S. citizen, accusing Wu
of having illegally entered China for purposes of espionage.
Renewed military tensions in the Taiwan area were a source of even
deeper concern. Coastal areas opposite Taiwan and waters near the island
were now the focal point of significant exercises by Chinese military units.
Exercises in July, August, October, and November entailed a higher tempo of
military activity than in preceding years, including naval actions, amphibious
operations, and a series of M-9 tactical ballistic missile firings north of Tai-
wan. Beijing's advance publicity for these operations, and clear indications
that additional actions were planned, raised the military temperature in the
Taiwan area to higher levels than at any point since the onset of the Sino-
American rapprochement in the early 1970s. Not only were Chinese officials
unprepared to forswear the use of force but military officials began to hint
openly of the inevitability of military hostilities against Taiwan, given Bei-
jing's declared judgment that Lee Teng-hui was moving Taiwan toward de
jure independence.
However, as tensions with Taiwan rose, the seeming freefall in U.S.-China
relations of June and July abated. In an early August meeting in Brunei be-
tween Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Foreign Minister Qian
Qichen, the U.S. provided assurances to China (outlined in a three-page letter
from Clinton to Jiang Zemin) that the Lee visit reflected special circum-
stances. However, there were no guarantees from the U.S. that such a contin-
gency would not recur. At the same time. Secretary Christopher offered an
101
6 ASIAN SURVEY. VOL. XXXVI. NO. 1. JANUARY 1996
explicit, strongly worded reaffirmation of a U.S. "one China" policy.^ In
subsequent private meetings, U.S. diplomats reassured tlicir Chinese counter-
parts that future visits to tlie U.S. by senior officials from Taiwan would be
"unofficial, rare, personal, and private.""* The trial and rapid expulsion of
Harry Wu suggested tliat prevailing opinion within the ■ leadership did not
want the Wu case to interfere unduly with restoration of a tolerable working
atmosphere in bilateral relations.; This included Ambassador Li Daoyu's re-
turn to Washington and China's ultimate concurrence in Sasser's nomination
to the Beijing post.
" However, subsequent developments, includmg a two-hour meeting in New
York in late October between Jiang and Clinton and the November resump-
tion of senior military contacts, underscored the continuing Ihnits in U.S.-
China relations during the present period. Notwithstanding U.S. reassurances
of its one-China policy, there was neither warmth nor trust in the bilateral
relationship. In different ways, both leaders were constramed by domestic
political forces that sought to limit forward movement. Moreover, neither
Jiang'nor Clinton appeared willing to invest the political resources needed to
heal the serious breach in relations created by the events of the preceding six
months, let alone devise a more durable basis for a productive relationship.
The: Chinese may well have concluded that the U.S. was not encouraging
Taiwan's moves toward independence, and the repeated assertions by the ad-
ministration of its commitment to an engagement strategy (as opposed to con-
tainment) may have provided a measure of assurance to leaders in Beijing.
These steps, although welcome, were demonstrably insufficient to ensure
productive political interaction.
The latter judgment was especially relevant in light of bureaucratic inter-
ests in both countries that were able to mfluence bilateral ties. In December
the conviction and sentencing of Wei Jingsheng, China's most promment dis-
sident, to a 14 -year imprisonment on contrived sedition charges provoked
immediate calls in the United States to revisit President Clinton's 1994 policy
of comprehensive engagement. 'Tlie administration, however, continued to
opt for relative restraint, perhaps concluding that a tenuous truce with Beijing
was preferable to another cycle of recrimination and escalatory rhetoric. It
remained to be seen whether such restraint was sustainable over the longer
term.
• • \-
But the likelihood of heightened military tensions in the Taiwan Strait —
including the prospect of overt hostilities between China and Taiwan, accord-
3. Michael Dobbs, "U.S., China Agree to Talks on Relations," Washington Po.s/, "August 2,
1995. j;:
4. Don Oberdorfcr, "Juggling Between the Two Chinas," Washington Post, October 22, 1995.
102
Til£ W'ilTED STATES AND ASIA IN 1995 7
ing to some observers witli special access in Beijing^ — loomed as aii even
more vexing long-lcrm challenge to the Clinton administration. Many in the
region were understandably discomfited by the absence of productive rela-
tions between military officials in Washington and Beijing, especially as se-
nior leaders of the Chinese armed forces began to assume a more visible and
assertive role within the policy process. But the tenuous coimections be-
tween senior political leaders seemed equally or more worrisome, underscor-
mg the risks of miscalculation and potential crisis in the Taiwan Strait. With
leading U.S. officials insufficiently focused on the prospective risks, the out-
look for stable, productive Sino-American relations seemed increasingly
problematic.
U.S. -Japan Relations: The Unsteady
Three-Legged Stool
The competmg impulses in U.S. Asia policy were most keenly felt in rela-
tions with Japan. As America's most important Pacific ally, Japan provided
the United States with indispensable financial support, base access, and mili-
tary presence, without which U.S. forces in the Pacific would not be able to
execute U.S. defense strategy throughout the region. Begiiming in late 1994,
Washington endeavored to reaffirm and reinvigorate these ties, which a
growing number of observers on both sides of the Pacific believed were not
as robust or assured as in the past. The February publication of a Department
of Defense strategic review, designed to supplant papers prepared in the Bush
administration, committed the United States to maintain extant force levels in
the region, including 47,000 uniformed personnel based onshore in Japan.^
Though critics faulted the document for being wedded too closely to the
status quo, the study sought to impart a baseline commitment to regional
security allies such as Japan and Korea, conveying that America's vital na-
tional interests presumed a continued need for a substantial U.S.-forward mil-
itary presence. The document therefore signaled that U.S. forces would
remain largely unchanged in their orientation and composition, fulfilling a
stabilizmg role that no other country was able to perform.
A principal intent of the strategy report was to ensure that U.S. regional
allies continued to approach their security needs in ways that were comple-
mentary and congruent with American interests, and that America's security
partners would not undertake military acquisitions that undermined or im-
peded U.S. regional strategy. But American officials recognized that this
5. Sec, for example, the comments of Singaporean Senior Minister Lcc Kuan Yew in Straits
Times, weekly edition, October 14, 1995.
6. United States Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region (Washington, D.C.: De-
partment of Defense, Office of International Security Affairs, February 1995).
103
8 " ASIAN SURVEY. VOL. XXXVI, NO. 1. JANUARY 1996
process would succeed only through patient, long-teim coalition building
rather tlian abrupt insistence on upholding a set of American preferences.
Japan was central to this entire effort, a fact reinforced by ongoing internal
Japanese deliberations over revising Tokyo's principal defense planning doc-
ument (tlie 1976 National Defense Program Outline).
But other pressures were also impinging on Japan. From the onset of his
administration, President Clinton had deemed the yawning trade deficits with
Japan unacceptable to American interests. The president had repeatedly
sought to accord increased weight and emphasis to the economic dimension
of relations with Japan, which presumed diminished emphasis on the political
and security aspects of the "three-legged stool" of bilateral ties.
Since the 1993 signing of the U.S. -Japan framework agreement on trade
and market access, the two sides had done battle on the most appropriate way
to gauge Japan's market opening • measures, with Tokyo fiercely resisting
strict quantitative criteria. But the. Clinton administration had increasingly
gravitated toward a "results oriented" trade policy, which presumed vigorous,
high profile efforts to ensure enhanced access to the Japanese market. The
president may also have calculated that a more assertive U.S. policy could
pay dividends with the electorates ^ of midwestem states crucial to his reelec-
tion prospects. 1 ^;•.• •; ■ ' : . ; .
With the Office of the Special Trade Representative in the lead role, the
administration embarked on a series of conflictual exchanges with Japanese
trade negotiators. These efforts climaxed in a protracted, high-stakes con-
frontation during the late spring and early summer over American access to
the Japanese automotive market, with the U.S. committed to imposmg 100%
tariffs on Japanese luxury automobiles pending a June 30 deadlme. Only a
last-minute agreement forestalled such actions, which would have openly de-
parted from conflict-resolution procedures mandated under WTO guidelines.
Indeed, even prior to the final settlement, the bruising character of the ne-
gotiations appeared to chasten both sides. The consequences were palpable,
affecting the personal and political, tenor of the bilateral relationship. The
firequently confrontational. negotiations between Kantor and his 'Japanese
counterpart, Ryutaro Hashhnoto, Japan's Minister of International Trade and
Industry and a vigorous exponent, of .economic nationalism, strengthened
Hashimoto's hand in Japanese domestic politics, very likely contributing to
his subsequent, election, as president of the Liberal" Democratic Party.
Sobered by these experiences.'^ the United States and South Korea in late Sep-
tember were able to negotiate a" more substantial automotive agreement
against a comparable deadline, but with far less rancor.
The larger issue, however, concerned the conflicting messages imparted by
■different interactions between Japanese and American leaders. U.S. policy
toward Japan was more schizoid than hydra-headed. One set of officials
104
THE UNITED STATES AND ASIA Iti 1995 9
sought to ciiliancc an existing collaborative relationship llirough patici
pathetic coalition-building, and a separate leadership cluster was detei
to redefine the basis of bilateral relations through highly public pressu
the same time, hectoring and recrimination were a game that both states
play.
Without question, the aftermath of the trade negotiations put re!
under increased strain and when the Okinawa rape incident was fully
cized in mid-September, it unleashed widespread public outrage. The
gies extended by Clinton, Secretary of Defense William Perry, an(
Ambassador Walter Mondale seemed deeply felt, and helped contaii
more severe reactions, altliough the intemperate comments of Admiral
ard Macke, commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific (CINC
cost him his job. U.S. and Japanese officials also moved quickly to <
any ripple effects by establishing a joint commission to address land-i
sues that could fester or erupt again in the future. Discussions about pc
modifications in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) were also ini
Altliough the United States signaled its readiness to explore use of al
tive locales in Japan in order to reduce its extraordinary dependence on
ties in Okinawa, American policy makers and their Japanese counterpa;
not want the Okinawa incident to prompt a major reassessment of th
ance. But the reverberations of the incident in Japan were palpable
gesting a recognition across the political spectrum of the need to revi:
value and relevance of a highly encumbering alliance designed for a dil
era."^ To be sure, domestic discontent with a highly asymmetrical se
relationship did not signal coalescence around an alternative security cc
for Japan; support for tlie Mutual Security Treaty, though diminished
aftermath of tlie Okinawa incident, was still substantial. When Clintoi
celed his late November visit to Japan, he also postponed issuing a joi
curity declaration he and Prime Minister Tomiichi Muruyama were tc
signed in Tokyo, reaffirming the commitment of both countries to the ra
nance of a robust alliance. Symbolism aside, few saw the present atmos
as likely to reorder the U.S.-Japan relationship m a fundamental way. E
status quo was no longer as tenable, suggesting an incompleteness and
of resolution that both counUries had yet to address fully.
The Korea Conundrum
On the Korean Peninsula, events were superficially more stable, at least
compared to the protracted North Korean nuclear crisis of the previoui
The signing of the U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework in October
7. A thoughtful account by David I. Hitchcock, "A Security Treaty Best Suited for .
Era," is in Los Angeles Times, Opinion Section, November 5, 1995.
105
10 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXVI, NO. 1, JANUARY 1996
designed to freeze and dismantle Pyongyang's plutoniuni production reactor
and halt completion of two far larger reactors then under construction, initi-
ated extensive negotiations with North Korean officials over the provision of
two replacement light water reactors. The artifice for this project was the
Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a consortium
directed by Stephen Bosworth, a retired senior American diplomat, but with
primary contractor responsibilities assigned to the South Korean nuclear in-
dustry. The Republic of Korea (ROK) was e^^pected to provide the prepon-
derance of funding for this large but highly uncertain undertaking. However,
North Korean objections to the ROK's extensive involvement in the project
slowed the negotiating process. Despite these objections, in mid- June Wash-
ington'and Pyongyang concluded negotiations on the KEDO formula, with
President Clinton providing separate assurances to South Korean President
Kim Young Sam guaranteeipg the prime contractor role for the ROK.^ After
additional months of negotiations in which Pyongyang resorted to an array of
demands and tactical delays, North Korea and KEDO finally signed a $4.5
billion agreement in mid-December. .' ";..•..•:•;:
But signing the agreement still offered no guarantee of success. North Ko-
rean negotiating strategy was often very difficult to discern, with Pyongyang
rather puzzlingly impeding the opening of' liaison offices in the U.S. and
North Korean capitals as provided for under the agreed framework. Pyong-
yang'also went to ample lengths to delegitimize the existing armistice ar-
rangements on the pen^sula, hoping' to maneuver the United States into
negotiating a separate peace treaty with the North that excluded the South.
But Pyongyang made precipus little headway m it? maneuverings. Indeed,
despite years of intermittent negotiations with the United States, Pyongyang's
internal politics remained extraordinarily obscure, with no indications of its
readiness to move toward more civil relations with South Korea. Notwith-
standing the nuclear accords,- North Korea's problematic political and eco-
nomic prospects and the undiminished risks of a hugely destructive military
conflict still hovered uneasily over the peninsula.
" v;v: Storm Clouds 'over South Asia ■
Portentous possibilities also loomed in South Asia where the U.S. had under-
taken a serious effort to upgrade economic, political, and security ties with
India. Three U.S. cabinet secretaries (defense, energy, and commerce) vis-
ited India during 1995, reflecting a'recognition of the country's increasing
economic clout and longer-term power' potential. But other possibilities on
^vi
8. 'Andrew Pollack, "U.S. and North Korea Agree on Deal for Nuclear Reactors," New York
Timer," June 13. 1995; T. R. Rcid and Lee Kcumhyun, "South Korea Accepts Deal with North on
A-Powcr," Washington Post, June 14, 1995. - ; .
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
106
3 9999 05983 907 4
THE UNITED STATES AND ASIA IN 1995 1 I
the horizon could severely complicate tlie U.S. regional role. There were
increasing reports that India was preparing to deploy several dozen Prithvi
missiles, which would then be almost certain to prompt Pakistani deployment
of M-1 1 missiles acquired earlier from China but as yet undeploycd. Should
Islamabad take such a step, it would then automatically trigger reimposition
of U.S. sanctions against China, further com.plicating Sino-American rela-
tions at a very delicate moment.
More ominous possibilities also loomed. Unusual levels of activity ob-
served near year's end at India's nuclear test site raised concerns that New
Delhi was preparing for its first nuclear test since 1974.^ Such a step would
appreciably heighten risks of the spread of nuclear weapons, even as negotia-
tion of a global test ban seemed more of a possibility in 1996. Indeed, the
prospect of a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) may have prompted In-
dia to consider an additional test prior to the onset of such a treaty.
But South Asia had hovered so long in a near nuclear netherworld that a
failure of nonproliferation policy was not inevitable. Indeed, even as the U.S.
moved to solidify its ties with India, parallel moves were afoot in the Con-
gress and m the executive branch to induce increased flexibility in relations
with Pakistan. Islamabad had been laboring under the constraints of the
Pressler amendment since 1990, following the Bush administration's declara-
tion that it could no longer certify Pakistan's nonnuclear status. As a conse-
quence, Pakistan had been unable cither to acquire weapons purchased but
never transferred from the United States or to recover funds spent on these
programs. A resolidified U.S. relationship with Islamabad appeared to offer a
realistic prospect for preventing an incipient nuclear and ballistic missile
competition in Soutli Asia, with all the unpredictable consequences that
might then ensue. Here, too, an engaged United States afforded prospects for
ensuring a more stable regional balance than in the absence of a purposive
American role.
APEC Without Clinton: Conspicuous by
His Absence
At year's end, however, the symbolism of President Clinton's absence from
the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) heads of state meeting in
Osaka made the largest statement about U.S. policy. Having lobbied strongly
for the elevation of APEC as a forum within which the region's dynamism
and diversity could be harnessed for important longer-term goals such as
trade liberalization, Clinton concluded that budgetary priorities mattered
more. Even worse for American interests, the U.S. had seen the APEC pro-
9. Tim Wcincr, "U.S. Suspects India Prepares for Nuclear Test," New York Times, December
15. 1995.
107
12 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL XXXVI, NO. 1. JANUARY 1996
cess as an ideal forum to showcase Japanese leadership within the region.
Absent the presence of the American head of state, Tokyo's leadership a.spi-
rations seemed far less consequential, and U.S. support for an enlianced Japa-
nese role was less credible. Indeed, prior to the cancellation of the presi-
dent's trip. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Winston
Lord cogently argued why Clinton had to attend: "There's no chance that he
will not go. . . . [It] would deal a body blow to our partnership with Japan and
it would deal a body blow to APEC'^o
■ At the end of a year of turbulence and growing unease about U.S. leader-
ship in Asia, the Clinton administration had ample cause to ponder the poten-
tial challenges to American interests, should tiie region as a whole begin to
view the United States as an insufficiently committed great power.
10. Lord made his remarks in a briefing to reporters prior to cancellation of the president's
trip, cited in Richard Halloran, "Disarray," PacNet, no. 43, December 18, 1995.
o
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